I. E. DWINELL 



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Israel Edson Dwinell, D.D. 



A MEMOIR 



By Rev. Henry EP'Jewett, 



r KrTTuv 



SERMONS 



MA\ l 15 1893 




l /z/3 n y 



Publisher, 
Oakland, Cal 



7 







Copyrighted, 1892, by 

H. ~F f . JEWETT. 



From the Press of 

Bacon & Company, 

San Francisco. Cal. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Chapter I. — Ancestry. Boyhood. At School. " The Lit- 
tle School Teacher." 7 

Chapter II. — College Life. Conversion. Covenant 15 

Chapter III. — In Tennessee. Teaching 25 

Chapter IV. — Theological Course. Rebuffs. Small-Pox. 

Further Struggles. Perseverance 29 

Chapter V. — Marriage. Home Missionary Service. At 

Galena and Rock Island 35 

Chapter VI. — Pastorate in Salem. Journal, i849-'5i. Ad- 
vocacy of Maine Law. Death of Child 43 

Chapter VII. — Pastorate in Salem. Journal, 1852. Re- 
vival. A Dream. Vacation. Expository 
Preaching 53 

Chapter VIII. — Pastorate in Salem. Correspondence : 
The Pacific, The Salem Register, The Congre- 
gationalist. Advocacy of a General Confer- 
ence in Mass. "A Northern Deliverance." 
Hand-to-hand Work 63 

Chapter IX. — Pastorate in Salem. Revisits Jonesboro. 

Visits from C. L. Goodell 71 

Chapter X. — Winthrop Club. Contributor to Bibliotheca 
Sacra and New Euglander. History of a Re- 
jected MS. Subsequent Articles. Extracts. . . 77 

Chapter XI. — Calls Westward. Close of Salem Pastor- 
ate. Tributes 91 

Chapter XII. — New Scenes. Pastorate at Sacramento. 
Letter from George Kennan. Further Trib- 
utes 107 

Chapter XIII. — A Christian Citizen 121 

Chapter XIV. — An Institution Builder. Pacific Theolog- 
ical Seminary. Hopkins Academy. Mills 
College 133 



4 ' CONTENTS. 

Chapter XV. — A Christian Leader. American Board. 

National Council 157 

Chapter XVI. — Travels Abroad. Egypt. Holy Land. 
Europe. Hawaiian Islands. Paintings of the 
Great Masters. Characteristics of Foreign 
Cities. Missions in Turkey. Letters to 

Grandchildren '. . 16 

Chapter XVII. — Professorship at Oakland. Home on 
the Hill. Poem. Methods of Instruction. 

Tributes from Students 183 

Chapter XVIII.— Close of Life 193 

Chapter XIX. — Genealogy 199 

Chapter XX. — "Appreciated by Others." Tributes.... 201 

SERMONS. 

I. — Christianity, a Religion of Expectancy 223 

II. — The Assailed but Conquering Book 239 

III. — Property an Instrument for Moral Training 253 

IV. — Unconscious Help from God 265 

V. — God's Saying Should be Our Doing 273 

VI.— " Lead Me to the Rock." 283 

VII.— Church Fellowship 2S7 

VIII.— Extracts 313 



INTRODUCTORY. 



"The eminent character, high position and valuable services 
of the late Dr. Dwinell deserve a Memorial, prepared with 
superior care, and put in a permanent form." 

[From a report to the General Association of California, presented by 
Rev. George Mooar, D.D., and adopted October, 1^90.] 

The following pages have been prepared 03^ one who 
stood- close to Dr. Dwinell in much of the work of his 
later j^ears, and who has had access to many records of 
his earlier life. From within the family circle he has 
known, loved, and honored him whose life is here pre- 
sented. While the hand of affection has held the pen, 
there has seemed to the writer no need of lavish praise. 
Those who knew Dr. Dwinell have long recognized 
his "eminent character, high position and valuable 
services. ' ' To those who have not known him he may 
herein teach the lesson of a noble Christian life. It is 
hoped, therefore, that this Memorial may be not only a 
memento of a departed friend, but also a help to those 
who will know him only through this volume. 

Closely blended with his life in spirit and service is 
the life of one dear to him, whom children and grand- 
children delight to honor, and whose Autumn is as the 
sunshine of Summer. 

To her this book is dedicated. 

H. K. JKWETT. 
Vacaville, Cal., Nov. 3, 1892. 



" To tell of such a life all words are weak, 

And song and eloquence are dumb 
In presence of those deeds that make the sum 

Of his humanity. His records speak 
. Unto us like the fragrance of a breath 

Of holy incense from the house of Death, 
And lift our spirit to that purer sky, 

Not earth's, nor heavens ; but some medial sphere 
Where he seemed lifted, treading as on high 

A loftier citadel, with vision clear. 
Seeing by lights, divinely poised above 

The depths of sin and sorrow lying low, 
Yet found no depths too deep for his Christ-love. 

Rome, 'mid her saints, none saintlier could show." 



ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL 

CHAPTER I. 

ANCESTRY. BOYHOOD. 

Reverent recognition of God and gratitude to Him 
for the ' ' Outward Estate y t God hath given mee ' ' char- 
acterized Michael Dunnel, the Huguenot, first of the 
Dwinell family in America. He came to this country 
after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, in 1685, 
while others of the family settled in England. "The 
family," we are told upon good authority, "bear the 
title of Count, and were seated in France, near Ro- 
chelle." 

Israel Edson Dwineee belonged to the seventh 
generation, being the son of Israel, who was the 
son of Archelaus, Jr. Archelaus, Sr., was the son of 
Jonathan, who was the son of Thomas, fourth of the 
nine children of Michael. 

Throughout these generations, during a period of 
over two hundred years, there appear evidences of 
Christian faith, patriotism, personal worth, and a fair 
degree, at least, of worldly prosperity. 

Coming to America in his early manhood, Michael 
Dunnel lived in Massachusetts, dying, as is supposed, 
at Topsfield, in 1717. 

Scarcely any two of his children spelled the family 



8 ISRAEL KDSON DWINELL. 

name like their father, or like each other. Duenell, 
Doenell, Dunell, and Dwinell are some of the names by 
which the births of his children are entered on the rec- 
ords of Essex Co., Mass. 

During the French and Indian and the Revolutionary 
wars, the name in some of its many forms appears often 
on the rolls of the country's defenders. Israel Dwinell 
first appears in the third generation, in the person of a 
young patriot, who yielded up his life at the battle of 
Crown Point in 1760. Later on in the generations, six 
by the name of Israel are found, one of whom was the 
father of Dr. Dwinell. This good man lived to the 
advanced age of eighty-eight years. It was said of him 
at his funeral : " He was one of a very few old men, 
whose bodies have not outlived their minds. He re- 
tained in a remarkable degree the strong mental powers 
which were his natural endowment. For him the win- 
ter of age was not a time of fruitlessness. When he 
felt that mortal disease was upon him, and realized that 
through suffering he must be born into the life of 
Heaven, he said, ' Pray that God's will — not mine — 
be done. ' " It was a state of mind that reappeared in 
yet more marked degree of sweetness and resignation 
in the closing days of his son, whose life these pages 
commemorate. Dr. Dwinell's mother, Phila (Gilman) 
Dwinell, was a woman of beautiful character and of 
superior intelligence. Like her husband, she was 
" strong in the faith of the gospel." At every remem- 
brance of her, "her children arise up and call her 
blessed." 

To such an ancestry Israel Edson Dwinell did 
honor. The best they had to transmit he appropri- 
ated. The best that was in him, whether inherited or 
acquired, he imparted to all around him. 



ANCESTRY. BOYHOOD. 9 

His birth-place was Calais, Vermont, a town that 
has given to the Congregational Ministry Rev. Na- 
thaniel G. Clark, D.D., the honored Senior Secretary 
of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign 
Missions, and the late Rev. ConstansL. Goodell, D.D., 
a beloved pastor of Pilgrim Church in St. Louis, Mis- 
souri. The part of the town known as East Calais 
was the home of the D win all family from the time 
when Israel Dwinell, then a young man, brought to 
the great house on the hill his Marshfield bride. 

This homestead is a typical Xew England house 
of early times. It is a large two-story building, with 
generous attic. The hardwood frame is covered with 
half : inch boards, over which are clapboards, unpaint- 
ed, and in these later years shrunken and blackened 
by sunshine and rain. Up through the center of the 
roof protrudes a great chimney, with its five flues. In 
each of the many windows are twenty-four lights of 
glass. The outer doors are reached over stone door- 
steps. The round cat-hole near the bottom of the side 
door, the knocker on the front door, the treasures of 
the attic, the iron latches, the chimney cupboards, the 
brick oven and immense fire-place, the wainscotted 
walls in the " East " and ,4 West Square Rooms," and 
the generous buttery, — all have a charm to one unac- 
customed to such old buildings. 

This great house and the hilly farm on which it 
stood were bought by Dr. Dwinell 's father while }~et 
unmarried. To this home he brought his bride. Here, 
together, they reared a large famuY, five of whom sur- 
vive — all of whom have proved worth}- of their faith- 
ful and honored parents. 

Of the ten children in the family, the subject of this 
memorial was the fourth. 



IO ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. 

It was to his mother that Dr. Dwinell was chiefly in- 
debted for the impetus given to his intellectual aspira- 
tions. Like all other New England boys of that time, 
he attended " the little red school-house " in winter, 
and worked on his father's farm in summer ; but there 
were long winter evenings then, as now, and though 
East Calais was but a hamlet, where active men culti- 
vated the ungenerous soil, or chopped down for winter 
fires the beech and birch, and made sugar from the 
maple, and where industrious women added to their 
household duties the spinning of flax and wool, the 
little village among the hills had its public library, 
modest indeed, yet of unspeakable value to such as had 
any aspirations after knowledge. The mother encour- 
aged his love of books, guided his tastes, and favored 
his plans for further study. It was a not uncommon 
event for him to be ensconsed in some corner, absorbed 
in a book, while others of the family were " doing the 
chores." If the natural inquiry was raised, " Why 
can't Edson do this? " the mother's ready reply was, 
" Oh, Edson is reading." 

His sister says : — " I have heard mother tell of his 
great love for reading when he was a mere boy, — often 
telling her, when the boys in the neighborhood came 
for a game of ' goal ' on moonlight winter evenings, 
that he would greatly prefer to stay in the house and 
read. Often he would go out with the others, and after 
a little slip away quietly, come into the house, and take 
the book. At the circulating library he obtained works 
which he read with avidity. I remember mother's 
speaking of Rollin's History, which he read with great 
interest. " 

This love of books and of study was characteristic of 
him through all his life. 



ANCESTRY. BOYHOOD. 1 1 

A choice volume was like a rare apple. Its seeds of 
fresh thought were cherished, planted in his intellect 
at*d heart, springing up with characteristics of his own 
clear generalization, and bearing fruit for the nourish- 
ment and pleasure of other minds. His library, in 
after years, contained no one class of books, but repre- 
sented a wide range of subjects. 

Amidst the usual occupations and recreations of a 
Green Mountain boy, the lad persevered in the direc- 
tion of an intellectual life. It was through persever- 
ance that he won. It is told of him that on a certain 
da3^ one of his school-mates, a fast runner, challenged 
the boys of the district to catch him. ' ' All went for 
him, Edson among them. One by one the boys gave 
up, but Edson persevered, and succeeded in catching 
him, after two hours' running, by tiring him entirely 
out. It being the last day of school, their punishment 
for absence from the school-room was postponed indef- 
initely." By a like persistence, this thoughtful, studi- 
ous boy, whose life engages our attention, pursued the 
object of his ambition, until he entered upon his life 
work a liberally educated gentleman. 

When he had finished his studies at the district school, 
he entered the Academy at Randolph Center, Vt., and 
began to prepare for college. He was now in his six- 
teenth year. From 1836 to 1839 he pursued his studies 
first at Randolph, and later at the Academy in Mont- 
pelier, where he graduated, prepared for a college 
course. 

This matter of an education was, however, a serious 
business to him and to his father. A New England 
farmer of those days, if blessed with sons, could ill 
afford to spare one of them during his minority ; nor 
was it regarded as just to the other boys in a family that 



12 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. 

their time should be claimed by the father, while one 
" set up for himself," or gave himself to study. There- 
fore, following a custom then prevalent, young Kdson, 
at some time subsequent to his first leaving home, 
" bought his time of his father, " that is, paid, or gave 
his written promise to pay, to his father a certain 
amount, by which he was released from any further 
claim that his parents had upon his time during his 
minority. 

This buying of his time laid upon the young student 
an indebtedness which he carried for several years after 
completing his college course, an obligation willingly 
carried, and scrupulously discharged. 

Buying his time left him free to act for himself, but 
it did not pay his tuition and board bills, either in the 
Academy or at the College. We find him, therefore, 
teaching a district school in his native town the first 
winter after beginning his studies at Randolph. Appli- 
cation was duly made for the school in the ' ' next dis- 
trict. ' ' The post master was asked to canvass the 
neighborhood, and he returned the following favorable 
reply, not forgetting to give weight to his communica- 
tion by signing himself "Jonas Hall, p. m. " 

Calais, January 15th, 1837. 
Dear Sir : — I received yours of the 14th And read it 
with pleasure. I have Seen a considerable part of the 
District And They appear to Be Satisfyed with Your 
Son's Comming to Teach the School. I will assist him 
in everything that Lays in my power. I will Send 
after him Towards night. 
Sir, 

Your most Obedient Servent, 
ISSRAEL DWINEL Esq. JONAS HALL, p. m." 



ANCESTRY. BOYHOOD. 1 3 

The boy was but sixteen years old, and was known 
as " the little school-teacher, " yet he gave satisfaction. 
He was in honor even ' ' in his own country. ' ' 

The following winter he taught in Montpelier. In 
this way by alternate study and teaching he accom- 
plished the first stage of his educational journey, and 
in the autumn of 1839 began the second stage as 
a Freshman at the University of Vermont at Burling- 
ton. 



CHAPTER II. 

COLLEGE LIFE. 

College life he seems to have enjoyed thoroughly. 
The records of those years are meagre, but they indi- 
cate that much hard work was done, and that in the 
earlier part of the course he shared in the usual scenes 
of jollity and mirth with which the majority of college 
boys are familiar. 

"He was universally esteemed by the students," 
writes Rev. J. G. Hale, whose acquaintance with Mr. 
Dwinell began in college, " as a man of unimpeachable 
character, a gentleman and a scholar. The lead of the 
class in scholarship lay between him and Albert H. 
Baile} r , of Poultney, who became an Episcopal clergy- 
man. The class as a whole were not very staid and 
steady, but Dwinell, Jones and Bailey were always reli- 
able and irreproachable." 

Here and there, among the fragmentary records of 
these days, we obtain glimpses of the young man work- 
ing his upward way. 

"1839. At home until Dec. 9th, and then com- 
menced my school, during which I boarded round the 
district." 

"1842. From Dec. 6th, 1841, till Feb. 2, I taught 
district school." 

" 1842. Roomed in No. 6, N. C, with Hutchinson." 

During his college course he was a member of the 
"University Institute," one of the College Societies. 



1 6 ISRAEL KDSON DWINEIX. 

As the college course drew near its close, the intens- 
ity of his struggle to maintain himself financially in- 
creased. Devoted and self-sacrificing parents had sup- 
plemented, as they were able, his own limited resources 
secured through teaching, but in his Senior Year the 
situation began to grow desperate. Those who knew 
him well can appreciate the urgency of the situation, 
which would lead him to appeal to any one outside his 
own family for aid ; but with his diploma almost in 
sight the question stared him in the face whether or 
not he could finish his course without further assistance. 

On the sixth of February, 1843, with many misgiv- 
ings, he addressed the following letter to a gentleman 
of means : 

"Mr. H , 



' ' Dear Sir : — I write this communication under cir- 
cumstances of pecuniary embarrassment. My object 
is to seek relief. 

1 ' I have now been three years and a half a member of 
the University ; and up to the commencement of the 
present college year, by industry, economy, and, above 
all, kindness of beloved parents, I have struggled ever 
on, and incurred small liabilities. But since then, 
owing to the hardness of the times, embarrassment of 
friends, and various unexpected disappointments, I 
have been thrown entirely upon my own resources, 
which are now nowise fruitful. 

' ' With such destitution of means on the one hand, and 
with necessary expenses every where staring me in 
the face on the other, what else can I do but seek some 
kind and liberal-hearted man to step forth and relieve 
me from my temporary embarrassment ? To him it 
might not in the end be any loss ; to me it would be 



COLLEGE LIFE. 1 7 

great gain. And to what nobler and better purpose 
can wealth be appropriated, than to assist and encourage 
those who are struggling unequally with blind fortune, 
and who only need the use of money for a limited period 
in order to realize what once appeared the visional 
dreams of their 3'outh — to be prepared for lives of more 
extended usefulness, and to assist according to what in 
them lies to the accomplishment of the purposes of the 
Most High ? 

' ' Under such circumstances, and under the influence 
of such feelings, I have been led to address this note to 
you as the person most likely to afford me assistance, 
wishing with more earnestness of feeling than I dare 
attempt to express that you would furnish me for a 
single year with one hundred dollars. I expect to 
teach, and trust when that time arrives, God being my 
helper, I shall be able to render back to thee ' thine 
own with usury.' Forty dollars I want before the 
twenty-fifth of March — the remainder before Com- 
mencement. My father, in a late letter, has kindly 
offered to sign with me, so that in case of an}^ of those 
unforseen accidents which befall one, }^ou would be 
ultimately secure. 

11 If yon wish to make any inquiries, that you may 

not lavish your assistance unworthily, you can freely 

consult any of my acquaintance, and particularly any 

of the Faculty. 

****** 

' ' Yours with sincere regard, 

"I. E. Dwinell." 

This letter, more than an}^ other thing that is pre- 
served of that period, reveals the spirit of the young 
man while in college. His letter is not an unmitigated 



1 8 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. 

request for charity. It appeals to the charitable spirit 
of a man of means, but its basis is a safe business prop- 
osition. The style is direct. The situation at home 
and at college is frankly avowed. Confidence in the 
favorable judgment of faculty and fellow-students indi- 
cates his own self-respect, while the urgency with 
which he presents his plea reveals the financial strug- 
gle he was passing through. 

Disappointment awaited him. In place of the bread 
his famished soul craved, he received a stone. This 
was the size of it : — 

"Feb. 7th, 1843. 
"Mr. Dwineel, 

' ' Sir : — The scarcity of money renders it difficult for 
me to collect money to meet taxes and the necessary 
expenses of my family. I cannot, therefore, grant the 
favour you ask ; and the advances expected of me by 
my children will probably make it out of my power to 
loan money to any person during my sojourn in this 
life. 

' ' Respectfully yours, 

"S H ." 

How this rebuff was received, many another strug- 
gling young man in our colleges and seminaries who 
has had like hopes dashed to earth can understand. 

The University of Vermont did not then have in 
beneficiary funds for worlhy students its thousands of 
dollars, nor any other college its present large amount 
of funded scholarships. If, with such aid, the needy 
student of today must toil painfull}', alpenstock in 
hand, up the steeps of a college course, we can com- 
prehend what it meant a half century ago to ascend 
the same heights with no alpenstock, and in the face 
of falling stones. 



COLLEGE LIFE. 1 9 

The crisis, referred to in the letters above, was in 
some way met, and the college course was ended in 
the autumn of 1843. Another crisis more momentous, 
more happy in its results, marking an epoch in the his- 
tory of a noble nature, occurred in the middle of Dr. 
Dwinell's junior year in college. With all the ambi- 
tion of a student, he had lacked until then the Chris- 
tian motive which thereafter for nearly fifty years gave 
direction to his intellectual powers. His parents were 
Christians ' ' of the old Puritan stamp. " Some of their 
children remember the meetings held 03- the old First 
Church, organized in 18 10, and reorganized in 1824, to 
which their father and mother belonged. " I recall," 
says one, ' ' the general meetings held in barns (we had 
no church building), and the great interest taken on 
those occasions. Monthly meetings were often held at 
our house. The religious element was far greater then 
than at the present time." It seems to be unques- 
tioned, however, that an irreligious and worldly influ- 
ence prevailed among many of the people, giving its 
character to the town. Amidst these diverse moral in- 
fluences young Edson grew up, ' ' trained to good hab- 
its and inspired with noble ambitions," like his con- 
temporaries, Rev. N. G. Clark, D.D., and the late Rev. 
C. L. Goodell, D.D., both natives of Calais ; but like 
them entering college — the same college — with the 
question of a Christian life unsolved, and, more, the 
consideration of it neglected. For nearly three years 
he gave no heed to whatever convictions he may have 
had, nor to the pleading of faithful friends. That he 
had at least one such friend is seen in letters that he 
has preserved from his classmate in freshman year, P. 
F. Barnard, who, after removing to Dartmouth College, 
in more than one letter pointedly and faithfully directs 



20 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. 

his friend to Christ. ' ' Let us often put to ourselves 
the question, and ponder it well, ' What will it profit 
us if we gain the whole world and lose our own souls ? ' 
Friend D., I hope you will express your mind freely 
upon this subject. We are, I trust, friends, and as 
such can express to each other our views and feelings 
confidently and freel3 T . ' ' 

And again : "I trust, dear friend, these things oc- 
cupy a prominent place in your reflections. Consider, 
ponder and decide. The Word of God is with you. 
Make it your study and obey it." 

What his replies to these appeals were we do not 
know, but in time there came the full surrender to 
God, the consecration of all his powers to the service 
of the Lord Jesus Christ. 

So unreserved was this consecration, that he wrote 
out and preserved till his life closed what he calls his 
<l Self Dedication." It marks the beginning of a 
Christian life that grew more and more beneficent and 
Christ-like until it passed beyond earthly scenes. 

After an introduction somewhat general in its char- 
acter, he proceeds : ' ' Great God ! be with me when I 
say it is a privilege for me to be a follower of the meek 
and lowly Lamb. Be with me, for I would dedicate 
myself immediately to thy service. Be with me, for I 
would devote myself entirely to thy glory. Be with 
me, Heavenly Father, while I commence thy eternal 
service with a solemn self-dedication. 

' ' King of Heaven and Earth ! Great God ! This 
day, the eighth of April, 1842, do I surrender myself 
to thee. I renounce all former lords that have had 
dominion over me ; and I consecrate to thee all that I 
am and all that I have, the faculties of my mind, the 
members of my body, n\y worldly possessions, my 



COLLEGE LIFE. 21 

time and my influence over others ; to be all used en- 
tirely for thy gloty, resolutefy employed in obedience 
to thy commands, as long as thou continuest me in 
life ; with an ardent desire and humble resolution to 
continue thine through all the endless ages of eternity ; 
ever holding rrryself in an attentive posture to obseive 
the first intimations of thy will, and ready to spring 
forward with zeal and joy to the immediate execution 
of it. 

" To thy direction I also resign m} T self and all that 
I am and have, to be disposed of by thee in such a 
manner as thou shalt, in thy infinite goodness and wis- 
dom, judge most subservient to the purposes of thy 
glory. To thee I leave the management of all events, 
and sa3 T , without reserve, ' Not my will, but thine be 
done, ' rejoicing with a loyal heart in thy unlimited 
government, as what ought to be the delight of the 
whole rational creation. 

' ' Use me, O Lord, I beseech thee, as an instrument of 
thy service ! Number me among thy peculiar people. 
Let me be washed in the blood of thy dear Son ! Let 
me be clothed with his righteousness! Let me be 
sanctified by his Spirit. Transform me more and 
more into his image. Impart to me, through him, all 
needed influences of thy purifying, cheering and com- 
forting Spirit, and let nry life be spent under those in- 
fluences and in the light of thy gracious countenance, 
as my Father and my God! 

" And when the solemn hour of death comes, may I 
remember thy COVENANT ' well ordered in all things 
and sure, as all my salvation and all my desire, ' and 
do thou, Lord, remember it too. Then look down with 
pity on thy languishing, dying child! Embrace me in 
thine everlasting arms! Put strength and confidence 



2 2 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. 

in my departing spirit, and receive it to the abodes of 
them that sleep in Jesus, peacefully and joyfully to 
await the accomplishment of tlry great promise to all 
thy people, even that of a glorious resurrection and of 
eternal happiness in thine heavenly presence! Amen. 
" Calling thee, Great God, to witnesss, I subscribe to 
the above. 

"Israel Edson Dwineix." 

This covenant reveals his familiarity with the writ- 
ings of Philip Doddridge, whose " Rise and Progress of 
Religion in the Soul ' ' furnishes the basis and to some 
extent the form of this self-dedication. Introspection 
was characteristic of this young Christian, not only at 
the beginning, but also through all the earlier years of 
his religious life. This habit, so natural to a deeply 
thoughtful nature, was doubtless encouraged by his 
frequent reading of an author whose language is: — "I 
am very sensible, and I desire that you maybe so, how 
great danger there is of self-flattery * * and how 
necessary it is to caution men against too hasty a con- 
clusion that they are really converted, because they 
have felt some warm emotions on their minds. Inquire 
seriously what views you have had of sin, and what 
sentiments you have felt in your soul with regard to 
it. ' ' These and like sentiments are recorded often in 
journals kept by Dr. Dwinell, from the time of his con- 
version till near the close of the pastorate in Salem. 
His conversion was, in very truth, a self-surrender to 
God. For forty-seven years his life was an exposition 
of his self-dedication. 

He began the Christian life, and united with the First 
Congregational Church in Burlington, when twenty -one 
years of age. All the years of his majority were 



COLLEGE LIFE. 23 

marked b} r a loyalty to Christ that kept him in close 
companionship with the Captain of Salvation. 

College days came to an end in August, 1843. Mr. 
Dwinell had an appointment at Commencement. His 
quondam classmate Durant, writing facetiously from 
Montpelier, says : — " You have my best wishes thatj^ou 
may not upon the stage be seized with any bad symp- 
toms of palpitation of the heart, or such like unpleasant 
thing. Remember, you are speaking for your life. Rise, 
therefore, with the occasion, and confront your masters, 
who, too many of them, can't tell merit from a crow's 
nest. Bluster, sir, and swagger, and look wise ; and if 
you can't cheat your own consciousness, }^ou can the 
audience, and that's enough. 

" You know who writes this, and will, of course, par- 
don the license I take, for I do but partake of the gen- 
eral contagion. ' ' 



CHAPTER III. 

IN TENNESSEE. TEACHING. 

Immediately after graduating, Mr. Dwinell began 
preparations for a journey to Tennessee. Through his 
friend Charles C. Parker, he came into communication 
with Mr. William T. Herrick, (now Rev. W. T. Her- 
rick, of Castleton, Vt). Mr. Herrick was then Princi- 
pal of Martin Academy, at Jonesboro, in the eastern 
part of Tennessee. An engagement was entered into 
between the trustees and Mr. Dwinell, that he should 
take a position as teacher in the Academy. In accept- 
ing this position, he turned his back upon an opening 
near home, that in the eyes of those who offered it 
doubtless seemed to have superior attractions ; but to 
the college graduate of today, if not to the B. A. of 
1843, one dollar a day ("less if you can") for twelve 
weeks, with board in as many families as there were 
weeks, would not seem especially desirable. 

"Marshfield, July 24, 1843. 
" I learnt this day that you had engaged to go to the 
South, to teach in an Academy, to my regret, so far as 
our school is concerned. * * * As you wrote to 
me that you would obtain a teacher for us, I would re- 
quest you to do so, and you will much oblige us if you 
will obtain a first-rate teacher, if you can, for one dol- 
lar per day (we board him), less if you can, say sixty 
dollars for twelve weeks, but not to send us a second- 
3 



26 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. 

rate one for the sake of saving a few dollars. * * * 
It would be impossible for me to describe such a teacher 
as we want. We should prefer one who has gradu- 
ated, for if he should have the good fortune to please 
the people, it is possible we might employ him twenty- 
four weeks. However, that would be quite uncertain. 
" Yours respectfully, 

"J C ." 

" P. S. — If it turns out that I am wrongly informed 
as to your engagement, we should give you something 
more than a dollar per day." 

It was not with the purpose of entering upon teach- 
ing as a life-work that Mr. Dwinell turned toward the 
South. His first thought, after leaving Burlington, 
was to pay the debts incurred in obtaining his educa- 
tion. The time bought of his father was yet to be paid 
for, and funds must be secured to enable him to pursue 
his professional studies, for already this consecrated 
soul looked forward to the Ministry as his chosen work 
for life. 

It was a long journey in those da} r s from Vermont 
to Tennessee. It was made in large part by stage 
coach and packet, and occupied many days. 

At Jonesboro he taught for eighteen months in the 
Academy already referred to. These were eventful 
months for him. From the far North, from a State on 
whose fair name had never rested the shadow of slav- 
ery, and whose people represented the Puritan frugal- 
ity and industry, he came, a young man, to a commu- 
nity where slaves were in every home, where northern 
sentiment was regarded with aversion, but where 
social life was extremely attractive. Under such cir- 
cumstances, the young teacher from the North needed 



IN TENNESSEE. TEACHING. 27 

wisdom and discretion. They were given him. He 
won the lifelong friendship of his Principal. He 
gained the esteem of his pupils. He obtained the con- 
fidence of the community. But that which meant 
more to him than all else will appear, clothed in his 
own language, in the following extract from ' ' Birthday 
Thoughts," written in 1844 : — 

' ' I am this da}^ twenty-four. * * * During 
the past year I have been highly blessed. * * * 
Our school has been pleasant, and there have been 
fewer occurrences than usual, perhaps, to mar the 
pleasure of teaching. I think our labors have been 
prospered, though the school is not large. I have been 
very happy in the society of Mr. Herri ck, whether as 
fellow-laborer or companion. I have an excellent 
boarding place, which is almost everything in the way 
of a sulstitute for home. I am on the whole very well 
pleased with Jonesboro. To be sure, it is a place of 
some little gossip, and some little freedom of speech 
that now and then proves unpleasant. But I think 
they do not hold me so often between their teeth now 
as formerly. 

" But, also, during the year other and more cheering 
prospects have dawned upon me. A new relation, 
though a very natural one, has sprung up, and may 
yet, under the blessing of Providence, ripen into fruit. 
Around this hope hang, in rich clusters, some of the 
brightest visions of my life — brighter than night- 
dreams. This fact ot love has tinged all the past, with 
which it has been connected, with beautiful tints of 
gold and purple. * * * A year that has smiled 
thus, must I not hold it in remembrance ? " 

This " fact of love " brought southern sunshine into 
all the remaining years of his life. Among the homes 



28 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. 

where Mr. Dwinell was made welcome during his res- 
idence in Jonesboro, were those of Mr. Samuel Max- 
well and his wife Hester (Greer) Maxwell, and Dr. and 
Mrs. John Yancy, she being a daughter of Mr. and 
Mrs. Maxwell. Prominent in the social and religious 
activities of the village, the familj 1 - made their homes 
attractive places to their friends. It was in this pleas- 
ant circle that Mr. Dwinell met and won Miss Rebecca 
E. A. Maxwell, one of the daughters. 

Of his life and work in Jonesboro, Rev. Mr. Her- 
rick, writing from Castle ton, Vt., in 1891, says : "I 
found him a very genial and faithful associate in teach- 
ing and managing a new Academy. He gave himself, 
heart and soul, to his work, and easily won the respect, 
esteem and love of our students, their parents and 
friends, the people of the place, and specially of Miss 
Rebecca Maxwell, his good and helpful wife, during 
a long and very happy married life. He had a rare 
faculty of bringing out the best there was in a boy or 
young man, and this apparently without any special 
effort, by the simplicity, honest3 T , truth and purity of 
his character, and the clearness, thoroughness and 
kindness of his teaching. I have alwa} T s counted it 
a great blessing to me that the Lord sent such a man 
— sent him (through my dear old friend, Rev. Charles 
Parker,) — to be my associate at Jonesboro. Our lives 
and hearts touched in many points, and his silent and 
unconscious influence over me was large, and helped 
to make me a better man, a better minister, and a 
better thinker. Perhaps the influence was some- 
what mutual ; but he gave me more because he had 
more to give. He had great capacity for being a 
friend, and he could be only a true, faithful and gen- 
erous one." 



CHAPTER IV. 

THEOLOGICAL COURSE. 

Mr. Dwinell was urged by a friend to " study Di- 
vinity ' ' under the direction of some scholarly pastor. 
Under date of July 13th, 1845, in a letter that has been 
preserved, he gave his friend his " reasons for going to 
a Theological Seminary," which — partly general and 
partly special — show that he greatly appreciated " the 
atmosphere of theological thought that breathes around 
them , ' ' and ' ' the book-facilities in which they abound. ' ' 
' ' From no place do such conservation , and at the same 
time, such exalting influences, go forth as from them." 
1 ' Where can we find in the community any organized 
influence that is doing a better work ? Can we fashion 
in our minds any practicable scheme, by which more 
men and better qualified can be sent forth as conserva- 
tors and regenerators ? " 

Having completed his service in the Academy at 
Jonesboro, he came North in the early spring of 1845. 

" Oct. 26. I came to New York in March, under 
circumstances sufficiently discouraging. I was in 
hopes of entering the Junior Class in Union Theologi- 
cal Seminary, and of finding a situation to teach in the 
city, in order to pay my way. In both objects I was 
defeated. But this fall, although I was disappointed 
in not being able to enter the Middle Class, I have, 
through the kindness of my friend Mr. A. B. Rich, 
secured a situation to teach, in which I am at present 



30 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELE. 

receiving ample means for prosecuting my studies. I 
feel very grateful to my Heavenly Father for this 
favor, and I have, now, little doubt but that the dis- 
appointment to which I have alluded will all turn to 
my account, if so be that I am faithful. 

' ' Hoping that God will watch over me to the end, I 
have entered upon the study of theology, which I re- 
gard as the crowning event of the year. I put my 
trust and confidence in Him ; with Him my destiny 
lies for the year to come. May I be worthy of Him 
by whom I am bought. ' ' 

This spirit of resignation, after failing to enter the 
Middle Class, was not acquired without a struggle, but 
he was ever after thankful that he entered the Junior 
Class and took the full course, and his advice to all 
students was not to cut short their course in college or 
seminary at either end. At the time the whole ques- 
tion whether he could take a Seminar}' course seemed 
to depend upon whether he could enter a year in ad- 
vance. 

" I was examined Wednesday night by Drs. White 
and Robinson for admission to the Middle Class, and 
was found not to be prepared. This circumstance has 
been a great rebuff to my hopes. I frankly sa}- I was 
disappointed and grieved by the issue. I do not care 
so much about the fact of being in the Junior Class 
(which I have concluded to enter), as to know that I 
had overestimated the amount of my studies. To be 
sure, my friends are looking forward to the completion 
of my studies for some little pecuniary assistance, should 
it lie in my power to make them any return for their 
kindness to me. A brother also has just entered col- 
lege, and I have been looking forward with much anx- 
iety for an opportunity to aid him in his attempts to 
get an education. 



THEOLOGICAL COURSE. 3 1 

" He stands almost alone. If left to himself, I do not 
know whether he will be able to buffet successfully 
with the world. 

' ' But as it is, all my hopes seem postponed a year. In 
one point of view, a year — one of the most profitable in 
my life — cut out by the ' shears of fate ' from the pro- 
gress of life * * * This is a false view of the case 
if I am true to myself, yet one which broods upon my 
mind. * * * 

" It seems to me I might have anticipated the result. 
How could I satisfy Dr. White, who holds a lifeless 
system of mental science ? I had studied his s}'Stem 
carefully. I think I know it. If he had desired me to 
give that, I could have given it in the phraseology or 
nomenclature of his school ; but when he put the ques- 
tions directly and demanded how things were, and 
when, thrown in that way back upon conscience and the 
sense of truth, I avoided the nomenclature of my own 
system, and adopted his in order to render myself intel- 
ligible (! ! !), no wonder that he thought that the 
science was an imperfect one in my hands, and that I 
ought (as he said substantially) at least to have given 
evidence of having examined the subject. The severity 
of this remark fell very harmlessly upon me. * * 

" Of course it would be presumptuous in me to attempt 
now to affirm what God designed in this event in my 
life. I hope it is to make me an instrument of greater 
good. I think 1 can see many things in which it will 
be to my advantage. I mean to watch the intimations 
of Providence, put myself willingly under God's con- 
trol, and obey the intimations of his wishes." 

"My Own Room, Dec. 15, 1845. 
" Last Saturday, late at night, I discovered on my body 
various ominous indented eruptions , which alarmed me 



32 ISRAEL KDSON DWINELL. 

considerably. I told my room-mate to prepare for the 
worst consequences with reference to both of us ; threw 
myself into bed, and tried to resign myself to leave the 
issue with God. In the morning I awoke, and no 
change of the night gave indication that the leopard 
had changed his spots. Dr. Post came at noon, and 
pronounced that I had varioloid ! This announcement 
was received very philosophically, considering that it 
pronounced me infectious, and a loathsome object to 
society, and doomed me irrevocably to my room. With 
what little religion and philosophy I could, I adjusted 
myself to my room, and am now endeavoring to content 
myself with the view of its narrow dimensions. 
******** 

" Well, I must bear the consequences of small pox. 
The first thing is to see nobody, and the second is to 
eat nothing, or its equivalent. A man then does exert 
an influence on his fellow-men, particularly if he have 
the small pox ! The influence is quite electric, as ora- 
tors and musicians tell about; but of the electrico- 
repulsive kind." 

"Dec. 17. Here I am, shut up for the public 
good ; remotely for my own. Then it is acknowledged 
that private rights must be sacrificed for public good in 
the case of a person breeding infection ! But you have 
great scruples against capital punishment for capital 
crimes. You hesitate to proceed against the man who 
degrades and ruins your young men, and hurries an- 
nually thousands of your old ones off to the grave, by 
furnishing them with poisons to satisfy an appetite 
which he himself fostered — because you do not like to 
interfere with his private rights. Then he has a right 
to circulate his noisy, tumultuous and mad drinks, 
while I, in good sooth, am to lie in my room for the 
good of the public ! ' ' 



THEOLOGICAL COURSE. 33 

"Dec. 16, 1846. The want of a few shining dollars, 
when that want is pressing, is a great annoyance. How 
the feelings droop under it ! The individual feels like 
an eagle tied down to earth, when he would spread his 
broad pinions and soar under the high heavens. His 
vision is money, too near tc be undesired, too remote 
to be reached. A poor man is very imaginative. If 
his themes were poetical, he would produce many a 
poem." 

Such an entry reveals the financial condition of the 
young theological student, notwithstanding his efforts 
to sustain himself by teaching ; a condition frankly ac- 
knowledged in his application to the American Educa- 
tion Society, made about this time. " Thus far I have 
got along without any assistance, save what my friends 
were able to give me while in college. I came to the 
Seminary without funds in hand, or which I could com- 
mand from any quarter. I succeeded in finding a sit- 
uation to teach, which I still have. I was in hopes to 
be able to pay my way, but find myself embarrassed 
and perplexed with a few debts, which I am unable to 
pay off. I believe it is my duty to ask for assistance. 

" I apply to the parent society (in Boston) rather than 
to the N. Y. branch, not only because I am from New 
England and a member there (at Burlington), but also 
because the beneficiaries of the N. Y. society inform 
me that the dividend here has hitherto been both irreg- 
ular and small, and promises to be less the coming 
year ? Can your society assist me ? * * * 
' ' Your brother in Christ, 

"I. E. DWINELL." 

The answer from Mr. Riddel, Secretary of the N. 
Y. branch, was sufficiently discouraging : " * * * 
It would not be regular nor fair for the parent society 



34 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. 

to have in their connection young men who are pur- 
suing their studies at New York, or at other institu- 
tions in the Middle States. * * * We cannot, 
therefore, comply with your request." 

Thus are we made acquainted with the difficulties 
that repeatedly threatened to undermine his courage, 
to crush his hope, and to block his way from the farm 
to the pulpit. His persistency overcame obstacles and 
carried him on his way. To all young men who have 
evidence that they have been called of God to the Min- 
istry or any other form of Christian service, he fur- 
nishes an example of perseverance that they well may 
emulate. 

As a student he was also persevering. Appreciating 
the value of his time and the importance of his studies, 
he was no idler. He was not wandering for his own 
delectation in the fields of theories and systems and 
hypotheses. He followed after truth, and searched for 
her as for hid treasures. "He was an industrious, 
thorough student, but at the same time he was a cor- 
dial, familiar friend, ' ' writes one who occupied an 
adjoining room in those seminary days, adding : — 
" Many were the essay plans, sermon plans and doc- 
trinal talks we used to have together. ' ' This fellow - 
student, Rev. Samuel H. Willey D.D., of San Fran- 
cisco, was for a quarter of a century Dr. Dwindles co- 
laborer on the Pacific Coast, the friendship between 
them begun at Union Seminary growing with the years 
until they were separated for a season by the death of 
Dr. Dwinell. 

On the seventh of April, 1848, Mr. Dwinell was ap- 
probated as a preacher of the Gospel by the Fourth 
Presbytery of New York. The following June he was 
graduated from the Theological Seminary, with the 
degree of B.D. 



CHAPTER V. 

MARRIAGE. HOME MISSIONARY SERVICE. 

Twelve long, eventful years had intervened since 
the boy began, at great sacrifice, to obtain a liberal 
education. Enriched in mind, ennobled by the Divine 
love to which he had surrendered, he took his place 
among those who, through the foolishness of preach- 
ing, hope to lead their fellow men to Hiin who ^aves. 

During the summer of 1847 he labored for a few 
weeks as a colporteur in Rockland County, N. Y. , under 
a commission from the American Tract Society. Upon 
the back of that commission he has made record : — 
' ' Commission from American Tract Society on which 
I acted as Colporteur one month with great profit and 
satisfaction." There is no record of his having preached 
at all during his Seminary course, but of one sermon 
preached after graduating we shall take note later, as 
the preaching of it led to his being called, months 
afterward, to a most important field. 

In making plans for Christian service in the Minis- 
try, the East as well as the West was open to Mr. 
Dwinell. He chose missionary service in the West. 
Under a commission of the American Home Missionary 
Society to labor in ' ' Northern Illinois and the region 
adjacent," he left Vermont in August, 1848, for Ga- 
lena, 111. , where his particular location was " to be fixed 
by the advice of Rev. Aratus Kent, agent of the So- 
ciety." In passing through Massachusetts he stopped 



36 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. 

over a Sabbath in Salem, as the guest of a friend, and, 
by invitation of Rev. Dr. Brown Emerson, the vener- 
able pastor of the South Chinch, the young Seminary 
graduate preached a sermon, the influence of which 
was far reaching, although at the time unsuspected by 
himself or others. 

From Salem he proceeded on his way westward via 
Tennessee ; mere definitely, Eastern Tennessee ; to be 
exact, Jonesboro, Tennessee. In truth, Jonesboro and 
the happy home of the Maxwells had never been, dur- 
ing his Seminary course, forgotten. "The fact of 
love " had brightened the last three years of student 
life. There was to be a wedding in Tennessee before 
the ordination in Illinois. He was to go forth to his 
life-work, happy in the presence, and aid and sympa- 
thy of a wife, who shared his every burden, 

" and made a sunshine in the shady place." 

On the 1 2th day of September, 1848, he was united 
in marriage to Miss Rebecca E. A. Maxwell. 

In a letter to Rev. W. T. Herrick, written a few 
weeks after the wedding, he gives a brief account of 
the wedding : "I reached Jonesboro on the second of 
September. We were married on the twelfth. About 
thirty were present — nearly all the relatives of Rebec- 
ca. Miss Ide and Mr. Allen (' Brother Jo ') were the 
attendants. Mr. Morey performed the service — beau- 
tifully done — gracefully done — much to the satisfac- 
tion of Mr. Morey, as well as others present. Rebecca 
was in good spirits and gc od health, both of which 
things have been true ever since. It was particularly 
pleasant for us to have Mr. Allen's company during 
our stay. He arrived in Jonesboro about the same 
time I did, and left the same day. There was as little 



MARRIAGE. HOME MISSIONARY SERVICE- 37 

cereinony on the wedding occasion as Rebecca's friends 
thought admissible with Southern custom, though not 
as little as either of us would have liked." 

From Jonesboro Mr. and Mrs. Dwinell set out for 
Illinois ; not, however, until Mr. Dwnnell had been 
urged to take the pastorate of the Presbyterian church 
in Jonesboro. There were dissensions in the church. 
" The}^ desired me to preach, and both parties pressed 
me sorely to remain with them. Rebecca preferred 
going away, for many reasons, most of which you will 
readily imagine, and I could not consent to remain. ' ' 

To Rev. Mr. Herrick : — "We left Jonesboro on 
the nineteenth of September. We stopped over the 
first Sabbath at Lebanon, with Rebecca's friends ; took 
steamboat at Nashville ; went directly to Galena, 
reaching there on the sixth of October. The church 
in Galena had previously invited Mr. Spees, from New 
York state, to be their pastor. He had not been heard 
from. I was requested to preach in the mean time. 
They w T ere pleased. They w T ould not allow me to 
make any other engagement until Mr. S. was heard 
from. This I was willing to do, because the field I had 
particularly in mind (not Rock Island,) had also in- 
vited a man, a classmate of mine, and he also lingered 
in giving an answer. We were kept about six weeks 
in this suspense. Mr. Spees goes to Galena. Mr. 
Clark does not go to Rock Island. That left the way 
open for us to come to this place. That defined our 
course. On leaving Galena w r e found that w r ehad made 
many warm friends. 

' ' This is a mission church, formed by those who were 
not willing to be O. S. Presbyterians. There are only 
Presbyterians enough here for one church, and I con- 
sider it folly to have two (Presbyterian) churches here, 



38 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. 

so near alike, merely to gratify the whims of disaffected 
and restless Christians. 

"The Old Schoolman — Mr. Larkin — is young, able, 
and, I believe, a good man, — amply sufficient for the 
wants of this place. But here are de facto two churches. 
What must be done ? Moreover, the place is a promis- 
ing one. It will not be long before two churches will 
be demanded by something more than a whim. One 
thing is clear. I shall not be sectarian. If I can do 
anything for Christ, I shall do it just as quick in the 
Old School or Methodist church as my own. I would 
not give a straw to build up New Schoolism nor any 
other ism as a distinctive thing. I intend to wait till 
Spring, and see whether my services are demanded 
here — not by the few who hear me preach — about fifty 
when they are all out, but by the exigencies of the 
case. If there are souls enough accessible to preach 
to, and I am doing good, I will remain — that seeming 
to be my duty — otherwise I may look for another field. 
I find no difficulty in being western enough to interest 
a western audience." 

In later years no one expressed greater disapproval 
than he of the " plan of union " entered into by Con- 
gregationalists and (New School) Presbyterians, and 
then (1848) existing, one inevitable tendency of which 
was that ministers like himself, born and reared in 
Congregational New England, if trained theologically 
in the Presbyterian city of New York, were recom- 
mended for licensure to a New York Presbytery. If 
commissioned by the American Home Missionary So- 
ciety, whose funds were contributed chiefly by New 
England Congregationalists, they were in most in- 
stances made welcome to their eastern fields by Super- 
intendents, — themselves Presbyterian, or impressed 



MARRIAGE. HOME MISSIONARY SERVICE. 39 

with the conviction, shared by general officers of the 
Society, that in the Western States Congregational 
churches could not nourish. 

Entering the ministry through the channel of the 
American Home Missionary Society, he was naturally 
put into communication with Presbyterian churches. 
His experience at Rock Island convinced him that 
such subdivisions of a denomination as existed there 
were not to his mind, were not called for, and could 
not permanently exist. The time came when the de- 
nomination itself saw that in unity there is strength. 
The time came, also, when Congregationalists saw that 
the Sons of the Pilgrims, in going West, are in no de- 
gree shorn of their ability for self-government. In 
Illinois, today, there are about three hundred churches 
of the Pilgrim polity and faith. In Chicago, alone, are 
fifty, not one of which existed until three j-ears after 
Mr. Dwinell left Rock Island. 

" Dec. 4, 1S48. We are keeping house ; get along 
first rate. R. does the work. I write the sermons. 
Happy as you please. ' ' 

It was ' ' light housekeeping ' ' that they so much en- 
joyed, for, as it seems, in the letter to Mr. Herrick 
quoted above, Mr. Dwinell felt unsettled from his first 
going to Rock Island. In the spring of 1849 there 
came an unexpected call to New England. We have 
referred to his Sabbath in Salem, Mass., when on his 
way to Illinois. In 1849 Dr. Emerson, the Pastor of 
the South Church, had been settled forty-four years, 
and had reached his three-score years and ten in age. 
It had been understood between him and the church 
that when he was seventy years old he should have a 
colleague 

That time having arrived, he was asked if he had 



4-0 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. 

any one in mind for the position. He asked where the 
young man was, who had preached for him the year 
previous — referring to Mr. Dwinell. The young 
man and his sermon had left their impression upon 
him and, as it proved, upon some of the people. It 
was voted, therefore, by the church and society that 
Mr. Dwinell be invited to preach for three months, 
with a view to settlement as Associate Pastor. The 
invitation was accepted, and the Salem pastorate entered 
upon. 

On leaving the West, Mr. and Mrs. Dwinell parted 
with many warm friends. Among them were Rev. 
and Mrs. Aratus Kent, of Galena, whose welcome on 
their arrival, and kindness and sympathy during their 
subsequent residence in Galena and Rock Island, were 
gratefully remembered ever afterwards. 

Shortly after Mr. Dwinell returned East there came 
urgent appeals for him to return. " We all want you 
to return, and will make up a handsome subscription, 
if you will do so, and next year settle you perma- 
nently." 

" Mr. Kent has visited us, and cheered us up. He 
says you will yet return to the West ; thinks it is 
your field. All agree that you could have built up a 
strong church here. This is more apparent now than 
when you were here." 

"Mrs. W. has just been in here, and desires her 
love to you both. You have reason to rejoice in the 
Lord in reference to her ; and, little as you ma3 7 esti- 
mate your efforts out of the pulpit, they were the 
means, in God's hand, of her conversion. " 

"Rock Island, Oct. 25, '49. 
< < * * * Q an y OU be prevailed on to come to the 
West ? If you are not engaged, I hope you will hold 



MARRIAGE. HOME MISSIONARY SERVICE. 4 1 

yourself 11011 committal, until time is given to hear 
from the West. 

" Brother Bascom of Chicago goes toGalesburg, and 
Brother Loss of Rockford is invited to go to the Third 
Church in Chicago. I have resolved to mention your 
name in connection with the First Church in Chicago, 
and to Brother Loss to use it, if he should have occasion 
to nominate a successor. 

" Yours, 

"A Kent." 

On the seventh of November following a formal call 
was extended to Mr. Dwinell, by the First Congrega- 
tional Church in Rockford, Illinois. "We have a 
good brick meeting house, one hundred and fifty mem- 
bers in the church, and a large population, almost the 
whole of which are of New York and New England 
origin. * * * We can now raise for your support 
five hundred dollars, with the confidence that we shall 
be able to increase the salary soon." 

This invitation was declined. 

"Rock Island, Jan. 21, 1850. 
" I sometimes think if Mr. D. knew how much they 
thought of him. he would be tempted to give up his 
fine location in the East and return. " 

This year of service in the Mississippi Valley brought 
him a practical knowledge of Home Missionary life 
and a S3 T inpathy with Home Missionaries, that were 
well worth the months of hardship and sacrifice cheer- 
fully undergone by the young minister and his wife. 
In the service they rendered the Master they found 
great satisfaction. The good they did was not soon 
forgotten. 






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South Congregational Church, Salem, Mass 



CHAPTER VI. 

PASTOR ATK IN SALEM. JOURNAL. 

No two towns could be more unlike than Salem and 
Rock Island. The latter looked anxiously into the 
future. The former recalled complacently the past. 
Of western emigration, Rock Island was receiving its 
share. With some exaggeration, it has been said by a 
recent writer : "Nobody new ever came to Salem, and 
everybody then living there had already his legitimate 
occupation." In its general aspects the town was 
more colonial than its neighbors. Its churches were 
venerable. Changes in pastorates were infrequent. 
In seventy-one years the Third or South Congrega- 
tional Church had been ministered to by but two pas- 
tors, the second of whom was still in service. In Illi- 
nois, the age of churches was reckoned by years, often 
by months. In Massachusetts, history had been mak- 
ing for over two centuries. From a church on the 
frontier not over fourteen months old, Mr. Dwinell 
came to one in venerable Salem that was an hundred 
and fourteen years of age. The First Church was a 
century older. 

To Mr. Dwinell Salem was an attractive city. It 
presented a promising field of Christian labor. He 
entered upon his Associate Pastorate over the South 
Church feeling that ' ' the lines had fallen to him in 
pleasant places, and that he had a goodly heritage." 

For fourteen years he labored there in the I^ord 



44 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. 

among a people who loved him with increasing devo- 
tion, and whom he loved with increasing tenderness. 
The ties of Christian affection there formed were never 
severed on either side. He lived in the hearts of his 
friends on the shores of Massachusetts Bay, through 
all the long years that intervened until his death by the 
calm waters of San Francisco Bay. The secret of this 
mutual affection, and of his success both as pastor and 
preacher, is an open one. He was absorbed in his 
calling. With singleness of aim he directed his own 
way heavenward, and those among whom he lived and 
labored believed in the man, and taking knowledge of 
him that he had been with Jesus, listened to the mes- 
sage declared by his lips and his life. 

From a journal which he kept during many years of 
his Salem pastorate we obtain glimpses of the pastor's 
heart, his sympathies, his burdens, his aspirations, his 
prayerful spirit. 

He was not one to thrust his personal meditations 
upon the public, but he was a man of meditation, and 
as he mused the fire burned. Communion with his 
Lord kindled into a flame his gratitude, his sense of 
obligation and of privilege. "God has given me a 
blessed privilege," he writes, " that I may labor for 
Him to save souls. How this at once rises up into the 
sublimest of employments ! How anxiously one de- 
sires to labor while such desolations are around him ! 
* * My heart clings to the work of Christ. It 
seems as if I owe so much to Jesus, and have done so 
little, I desire to be used in winning souls to Him." 

This absorption in the work of his calling was one of 
his marked characteristics. His people recognized it, 
and while they often spoke to him most appreciatively 
of his sermons, they came more and more to recognize 



PASTORATE IN SALEM. JOURNAL. 45 

his burden for the spiritual welfare of those to whom 
he preached. 

While he always appreciated and was cheered by any 
assurance that his sermons were helpful and stimulat- 
ing to others, he was more deeply affected by the 
knowledge that others shared his anxieties, and were 
praying for him. On one occasion when a sermon 
was highly spoken of by several of his people, he went 
to his study, and there prayed for humility. His 
prayer was, " O Lord, keep me from elation. Let me 
be content to rejoice in Thy work." 

On the other hand, when one in a prayer meeting 
alluded to the anxieties of the pastor for the salvation 
of souls, he records : "I tried to hide my tears under 
my hand and behind my cloak. These tears are a 
great weakness : and I wish they would keep back. I 
know not but it is pride, but they often make me 
ashamed." Like Paul, "out of anguish of heart * 
* with many tears " he prepared his messages of 
truth ; and yet, with the great Apostle he could say : 
" I determined this with myself that I would not come 
to you * in heaviness." 

After preaching one sermon early in his Salem 
ministry he wrote in his journal : "It seemed as if all 
my anguish of spirit was poured out in the prepara- 
tion of the sermon, and the shallow fountain of peni- 
tence and solicitude exhausted, so that there was none 
left for the sanctuary." 

But those who heard knew that his words came 
from a heart that was in close touch with Him who 
spake as never man spake. 

He who, with troubled countenance, spent whole 
nights in prayer, went out among the people of Galilee 
with countenance so serene and winsome that all 



46 ISRAEL KDSON DWINKLL. 

classes felt the benign influence of his presence. Not 
unlike the Master in this respect was this servant of 
His. 

In his pulpit, and among his people, all traces of 
conflict were usually obliterated ; and this devoted 
preacher and pastor — like Stephen, full of faith and 
power, — betrayed his divine companionship by a coun- 
tenance that grew with passing years more spiritual, 
more intellectual, and more benevolent — a face that 
to many in widely separated regions seemed like a 
benediction when they looked upon it, and is remem- 
bered now by not a few whom he has helped out of 
trouble, out of sorrow, out of sin, "as it had been 
the face.of an angel." 

His pastorate in Salem was, throughout, an Asso- 
ciate Pastorate. The Rev. Brown Emerson, D.D., the 
Senior Pastor, was ordained April 24, 1805, as the col- 
league of Rev. Daniel Hopkins. At the time of Mr. 
Dwinell's ordination as Junior Pastor, he had been 
in pastoral relation to the church forty-five years. At 
the semi-centennial of his ordination he said : ' ' The 
joint pastors work together in the same field, with 
uninterrupted peace and harmon3 T . Mr. Dwinell is 
proved to be a man of superior talents and attainments, 
well fitted by practical wisdom, kindness and untiring 
devotedness to the work of the ministry for the place 
he occupies. ' ' 

Among the ministers who were members of the 
Council which ordained Mr. Dwinell at Salem, Nov. 
22, 1849, were Revs. E. A. Lawrence of Marblehead ; 
Isaac P. Langworthy of Chelsea ; George W. Blagden, 
D.D., of the Old South Church, Boston; Nehemiah 
Adams, D.D., of the Essex Street Church, Boston. 
D. T. Kimball of Ipswich, was the Moderator. 



PASTORATE IN SALEM. JOURNAL. 47 

It was said at the time concerning the examination 
of the young candidate: ''It was close, searching, 
and thorough upon all points of doctrine and church 
polity ; and some of the learned Doctors in Divinity 
appeared to put their ingenuity to the test in propos- 
ing the most difficult and embarrassing questions of 
polemical theology. To the looker-on, the ordeal 
through which the candidate was obliged to pass 
seemed indeed like a fiery furnace ; but the calmness, 
self-possession, frankness, and ability with which he 
sustained himself, throughout the searching operation 
of three hours, won the sympathy and admiration of 
all present, and gave unusual satisfaction." 

The crdaining prayer was by Rev. Reuben Emerson 
of South Reading, the aged brother of Dr. Brown 
Emerson. Drs. Blagden, Adams and Langworthy also 
took prominent parts. 

The ordaining of a pastor in venerable Salem was 
well called, as it was also in other parts of New Eng- 
land in former years, the settlement of a minister. 
Ministers stayed settled in Salem. Dr. Hopkins, the 
predecessor of Dr. Emerson, was pastor thirty-seven 
years, until his death. Dr. Emerson remained in the 
pastorate until his death, in 1872, a period of 67 years. 
It was with a like settled feeling that Mr. Dwinell took 
up his work in Salem. He was engaged in a life work. 
It might be his one parish. Certain it is that if at the 
end of fourteen years he had been called to heavenly 
rather than to new earthly scenes, his life would have 
been regarded as eminently successful. He crowded 
into those years labors so abundant that the church to 
whom he ministered, and the community in which he 
lived, were advanced far on their way spiritually and 
morally, by what he did for them and with them. 



48 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. 

Through the pages of his journal we come into close 
and sympathetic relation with the man whose medita- 
tions, plans, opinions and acts are faithfully recorded. 

"Sunday, Nov. 16, 1851. This evening I heard Dr. 
[Lyman] Beecher, on the text, ' Quench not the Spirit. ' 
He spoke from a plan — in itself good — but his mind 
seemed to move heavily, and not much to kindle. 
It was Dr. Beecher, but not Dr. Beecher in his power. 
The discourse seemed to bear about the same relation 
to what he was when he preached in his power, as 
the figure on the guide board is to Boston to which it 
points. It indicated what he was." 

''Nov. 23. This evening have preached to a large 
and attentive audience on ' Unconscious Culture. ' It 
is a solemn theme for thoughtless youth." 

"Nov. 25 [after prayer-meeting]. I rejoice to have 
heard a freshly-felt petition for me in my work, but a 
formal prayer for the Minister causes a shudder. ' ' 

"Thanksgiving Day. Preached today on ' Neither 
Wealth nor Poverty favorable for the Well-being of 
man. Considerable freedom, resulting from the ability 
to re-create the subject as I went along, and to recover 
the state of mind in which it was written, yes, an 
intense state, and a more lively grasping of the subject 
— the state I like to be in when I preach. 

" Alcander, Sarah and Mary Jane here to dine, and 
spent the day with us. 

" Rebecca much plagued to get the turkey done." 

' ' Dec. 9. I tried, all day, to get a plan for a sermon. 
I made one, but its parts wanted in internal adaptation, 
and just as I was concluding, a new arrangement of 
thought occurred to me, which I much prefer. So all 
the building of the day fell down, and in a moment a 
superior fabric stood in its place." 



PASTORATE IN SALEM. JOURNAL. 49 

" Nov. 6. I have been in my study preparing for 
my temperance address in Marblehead to-morrow 
night. I intend to advocate the Maine Law. The 
friends of temperance in Massachusetts are making a 
rally to urge it through the legislature. I am strongly 
in its favor. ' ' 

"Nov. 7. This evening I spoke in Marblehead on 
the Maine Liquor Law. The town hall was crowded." 

"Dec. 12. Attended a temperance convention in 
Lynn — a rally in behalf of the Maine Law — but a 
small one, more is the pity. Heard Mr. Pierpont and 
Wendell Phillips." 

' ' Dec. 2 1 . This evening I heard Dr. Beecher . Sub- 
ject : 1. 'What Religion is Not.' 2. 'What it Is/ 
3. ' The Value of It. ' 4. ' The Way to get It. ' The 
Dr. had more than his usual life and ability, to quicken 
his now long-used mind to the measurement of his 
theme. I listened to him with profound attention and 
reverence. When he has not vivacity enough to be 
interesting in speaking, he is in the way he lays out 
his subject and the moulding he gives his thought. In 
these respects, what he does now is the repetition 
of modes and habits formed when in the prime of his 
powers. I listen to him to learn, if possible, how bet- 
ter to wield the Sword of the Spirit — the Word." 

"Dec. 31. Another year gone ! 1851. Where is 
it ? How little of good recorded against my name ! 
Of mercies, how many ! Of affliction, one precious 
(for it now seems a holy period to me) stroke ! ' ' 

The affliction referred to was the death of the first 
born, leaving the father and mother for a time child- 
less. At the age of seven months the fair child, Edson 
by name, who had a large place in the hearts of his 
parents, was suddenly called to the heavenly home. 



50 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. 

Deeply as their hearts were stirred, there were no mur- 
murings against Divine Providence. 

' ' I had hoped for the life of the child, but my prayer 
was even stronger than my hope, and that was that 
God's will might be done. From the first I had given 
him to the Lord — we had confirmed it by baptism — 
and now, when he was called away, I felt that no new 
question of resignation was raised. I had surrendered 
him long before, and the force of that surrender came 
up to my support at his death. 

' ' I had no questionings of Providence. There seemed 
no darkness, no mystery, in what God had done. I 
did not pretend to fathom it or know its meanings, but 
my faith and trust resolved the darkness all into light 
— how, I know not ; and I felt nearer to God than I 
ever did before. I felt that He was touching me ; and 
the Sacred Presence has made holy all that region of 
my life. That sorrow-house now seems the place 
where I have banqueted with the Lord. 

" Moreover, there seems a wholeness about the life of 
our little child — a completeness — that I never before 
realized, in relation to a life so short. It does not 
seem a fragment — a small part of a shattered vase — a 
bud torn off from the stem before it had time to open ; 
but a whole. There seems all the unity — beginning, 
middle and end — all the entireness of a life of three 
score and ten. He had his mission. He performed it. 
Would I could perform mine as well ! He left nothing 
undone God would have him do. And then, when his 
work was all done, with no blasting or abandoning of 
the apparently original purpose of God, he went away. 
We mourned, and our tears fell fast, for we had hoped 
he would be longer with us, and he had awakened a 
new and precious life in us. The parental feeling had 



PASTORATE IN SALEM. JOURNAL. 5 1 

begun to flow, the fountain seemed irrepressible — its 
object was at once taken away, and where now could 
the precious current empty itself? The obstructed 
waters surged back and forth through the soul : and 
now when I see a little child the sight sets them all in 
motion, and leads me to wish the child were mine. 
This is the first feeling ; and the next is that it will 
not live, as a matter of course ; — that it is already a 
picked flower, now fresh and beautiful, but soon to 
wither ; and I often find myself unconsciously looking 
for the signs of decay. ' ' [Letter to Mr. Herrick.] 

Twice afterward, once just before leaving Salem and 
again soon after leaving Sacramento, he experienced 
the great grief of parting with loved children : one a 
cherished bo3 T in the second year of his life ; the other a 
beloved daughter, whose marriage had occurred some 
months before ; but in both these bereavements, as in 
the earlier one, he bowed to the sweet will of his 
Heavenly Father with tranquility of spirit. 



CHAPTER VII. 

PASTORATE IN SALEM. JOURNAL. 

"Jan. 5, 1852. Heard Mr. A. L,. Stone lecture at 
the I/vceum on Kossuth. Eloquent, commanding, 
highly finished ; the gestures the most appropriate and 
expressive I have ever seen. They were in discourse 
what engravings of scenes and localities are in descrip- 
tions on the printed page. They pictured out the 
thought to the eye much more vividly than the words 
to the ear. It seemed the perfection of pictorial ge 
ticulation. There was no violence in it, but calmness, 
finish, art running into nature, yet extending to so 
much minuteness as to have a strong tinge of art. One 
further baptism — one higher effort of art — would have 
made it perfect, brought it to the triumph of art, which 
is nature recovered." 

This description, which all who have heard and seen 
the eloquerce of Dr. Stone will concede to be as true 
as it is vivid, was written over forty years ago, and is 
itself an artistic word picture. 

An address by Rufus Choate before the Phi Beta 
Kappa Society of the University of Vermont, he calls 
"incomparably brilliant and gorgeous." 

" 1852, Jan. 17. I have been reading Prof. Park on 
' New England Theology, ' in the Bibliotheca Sacra. I 
am in hopes to be able to spend more time on the stern 
questions of theology. I must exchange, or write with 
more speed ; do something to get more time for study 



54 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. 

not bearing directly on preparation for the pulpit. I 
love thorough study. I must endeavor to secure it, 
more of it. 

"Jan. 1 8. Tonight heard Dr. Beecher on Temper- 
ance and the Maine Law. There is a wide interest on 
this subject, and the prospect of the passage of the Law 
is quite encouraging. The lecture — Beecher-like — 
was partly historical, partly prophetical. 

"Jan. 21. I have been up to Boston at the Tem- 
perance rally on presenting the petition to the Legis- 
lature for the Maine Law. There were upwards of 
118,000 names on the petition, of whom more than 
50,000 were legal voters. 

" Received a letter from Mr. P of Rock Island, 

inquiring if on any terms I could be induced to return 
to Illinois. If I could, they would give me a call, and 
satisfy me in reference to salary. 

"Jan. 24. Called to see Miss S. She is indulging 
a hope, entertained on the evening of our last Sunday 
School concert. The meeting was a very solemn one 
to her. She alluded to what I said, on the importance 
of decision of character as necessary in order to become 
a Christian, as having made a deep impression, and 
she resolved to give her heart entirely to Christ ; and 
as soon as she had done it she found, as she believes, 
pardon of her sins. I could not help rejoicing that 
God has seen fit to honor me, who am so unworthy, 
by giving me an} r thing to do in the salvation of this 
soul. 

" Saturday, Jan. 30. Finished my sermon, which I 
began after eleven o'clock on Thursday, and which is 
four pages longer than usual. This is a shorter time 
than I have ever before spent on a sermon. 

" Feb. 7. I have been reading Neander this week. 



PASTORATE IN SALKM. JOURNAL. 55 

It is heavy, hard reading, but valuable. I have great 
confidence in the results, which he presents in his his- 
tory, of his study of the Christian Fathers. 

"Feb. 9. S. T and E I were present 

tonight, to converse on the subject of religion. 

"Feb. 10. Another sinner has turned to Christ. 
The Holy Spirit is among us. O that I were made 
solemn, and felt and honored his presence as I ought L 
At the close of the Sabbath School concert, Mrs. Driver 
came, leading one of her class, L. B., to tell me she 
hoped she had found peace today. The meeting was 
mainly spent in prayer, and it was solemn. 

"Feb. 11. Gave Lyceum lecture in Beverly to- 
night. The president of the Lyceum paid the lecture 
quite a compliment at its conclusion, but he did not 
know what an internal struggle anything of that kind 
costs me afterwards. * * * When praised I find 
no relief but in prayer. When most elated may I be 
most humble ! 

" Feb. 15. The presence of the Holy Spirit seemed 
marked and precious today. 

" Feb. 16. Miss F., Mrs. S. and Mr. H. were pres- 
ent tonight, to talk on religion. The last thinks he 
has found the Savior. 

" Feb. 22. The Divine Spirit seemed to be present,, 
and I have seldom seen the love of God for lost man 
so vividly. My soul was kindled, and I felt as if I 
desired to proclaim this unspeakable love. The Lord 
be thanked for such an interview ! Tonight I tried 
to preach the invitation, ' The Spirit and the Bride say 
Come, " etc. 

' ' This is the last Sabbath Jane expects to be here for 
the present. I feel sad to think of her going away. 
She goes to Vermont, where, doubtless, the question 



.56 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. 

will soon be decided about her going on a mission to 
Canton. If called of the Lord, I can, I trust, give her 
up ; and my pra}^er is that the Head of the Church will 
cause her to come to a right decision. 

" March 2. Last night I had a singular dream. I 
was to preach. A large audience was before me. My 
object, in which I felt the deepest interest, and for 
which all niy powers were kindled up, was to show 
the impossibility of a change of character after death. 
When I began, all eyes were directed toward me. The 
text was named — the theme and the subject opened — 
fervor and warm persuasiveness followed — the imag- 
ination kindled, and the soul seemed to move for the 
salvation of the hearers. But soon all eyes grew dull. 
One man took out a paper and began to read it ; Dr. C. 
drew out his account-books and began balancing them ; 
others, merchants and shop-keepers followed the ex- 
ample ; some entered upon earnest conversations ; some 
sported, and occasionally cast a sly look at the speaker; 
but the most seemed to be reproducing their daily bus- 
iness, so far as they could make it portable and bring 
it to the house of God. All had come prepared with 
something, — women with sewing, knitting, etc., and 
men with books and papers, etc. In a short time, in 
fine, the room was alive with the busy movements of 
worldlings, and I was addressing those too busy to hear 
me. I was speaking to traffic, business, gossip, amuse- 
ment, and not to the souls of men. The painfulness of 
this condition soon awoke me. 

"Then I thought that I had but the representation 
of what is really the spiritual audience we ministers 
often have to address. The material audience may be 
sober, motionless, pulpit-looking, devout-appearing 
persons ; while the spiritual audience is tradesmen, 



PASTORATE IN SALEM. JOURNAL. 57 

seamstresses, gallants, and lovers of the world. My 
dream made the inward and spiritual the outward and 
visible. What a sight it would be if we should be 
compelled to look into the hearts of our auditors, and 
see what casting of accounts, what laying of plans, 
what scenes of pleasure are enacting in them ! How 
it would stifle our ardor ! 

' ' March 1 1 . Heard Thomas Starr King this even- 
ing. R. and I went early, and saw the people assem- 
ble. At first I was reminded, as they came flocking 
in and regularly filled up the seats, of the systematic 
arrangement of ideas in a discourse. It seemed no un- 
fit illustration of the divisions and paragraphs, each in 
turn filled out with thought ; and all centering around 
the speaker and all looking at him, as all the thoughts 
should gather around some central one. But looking 
a little further, I discovered that there was no unity 
of age, or sympathy, or sex, or color, or condition in 
the partition of individuals. Different religions were 
side by side, different sexes, different colors, different 
ages. The seats indeed were filled, making an out- 
ward formal unity around the speaker. I therefore con- 
sidered it were a better illustration of that methodless 
kind of writing which has no interior method, nothing 
but the form of method, such as separate paragraphs, 
chapters, title pages and covers give. 

" Mr. King lectured on ' The character, labors and 
genius of Paul. ' Brilliant, but sadly deficient in evan- 
gelical spirit. There was nothing intimating that the 
Apostle was moved by anything higher than genius ; 
a perfect ignoring of all his spiritual claims, and all 
hand of God in his history. I wonder that as a liter- 
ary performance there should have been such want of 
apprehension of the central principle of his life. 
5 



58 ISRAEL EDSON DWINEEL. 

"June 6. [While sick.] I have felt that I could 
easily give up the world, the desire of carrying out life 
to a kind of worldly completeness or unity, the ambi- 
tious hopes, the large aims : all this I could easily yield. 
But to leave friends and have them mourning for me, 
— especially my dear Rebecca, and have her drooping 
and sorrowing over the void, — this seemed hard ; but 
harder far to leave the work of Christ. M3- heart has 
clung to this. It seemed as if I owed so much to Jesus, 
and have done so little ; that I desired life that I might 
be used in winning souls to Him. * * Life is made 
so miserable to the great proportion of the human fam- 
ily by sin, of which the Gospel furnishes the perfect 
cure, that it seems one who is laboring for the salva- 
tion of men can scarcely be spared. Yet how God's 
spirit and providence rebuke this argument of pride ! 
A voice at once tells me : — 'I can get along without 
you. Souls can be saved without you ; they have 
been ; they will be. Thousands and tens of thousands, 
better than you, I have taken away in the bloom and 
freshness of their service, and the work has not fal- 
tered. I choose to use you for the present, and while 
you live, work and be humble.' 

" So let me, Lord, ever be prepared to go at thy call, 
leaving all, and more than all, Christ's work, calmly in 
thy hands ! 

"June 13. [After hearing a sermon on 'Inspira- 
tion. '] He went over the whole ground, and the dis- 
course was an hour long. The matter was good, the 
method discursive. He shoots with shot and not with 
ball, and his shot scatter. 

"June 15. Was made happy to find Mrs. B. indulg- 
ing in a hope. God often works when we have noth- 
ing to do with it. She has not been to meeting for 



PASTORATE IN SALKM. JOURNAL. 59 

eighteen months, yet she has been for some time cher- 
ishing the secret hope. It is pleasant to have these 
unexpected revelations. They show that heaven has 
opened and a beam of light burst forth, which others 
failed to see. 

"July 4, 1852. In the evening the fireworks were 
brilliant. I admired them much. I thought, however, 
they were fit emblems of earthly joy and greatness, — 
brilliant, corruscating for a time, but soon ending in 
darkness. To be just symbols of heaven they should 
rise ever higher and higher, and grow brighter and 
brighter, until at last in one triumphant burst of glory 
they melt into heaven. There was an impressive moral 
before me, and I thought how often the most brilliant 
is the shortest lived. 

"July 6. This evening Brother sent in to the 

church a resignation of his office of , in view of 

the difficulties between him and Brother . His sen- 
sitive nature is much pained by the stiffness and stub- 
bornness of the latter. O that Brother could see 

his heart, — could see how much of the old man there 
is there ! He is a good man, but he knows his own 
heart less than any man I ever saw, who knows so 
many other things. ' ' 

Parts of the months of July and August were spent 
at Calais, on vacation. These days of vacation in Ver- 
mont were always delightful to him. Often preach- 
ing in the village church on the Lord's day, he gave 
up the rest of the week to unreserved enjoyment of the 
familiar scenes and friends around him. An exception 
should be made, however, of the first week of many 
vacations. It was his custom to write a sermon for 
the first service after he should return to his pulpit, 
and to finish it before he had fairly entered upon his. 



60 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. 

vacation. Thus we find him making this record in his 
Journal : — 

"East Calais, Thursday, July 23. Finished today 
a sermon on the Resurrection. It was very hard to 
write a sermon in vacation, but I knew it must be 
done, and began early Monda}^ morning, and am now 
very thankful it is completed." 

This forehandedness in pulpit preparation was char- 
acteristic of Dr. Dwinell throughout his ministry. He 
often had one, sometimes more than one, week's prep- 
aration in store. 

On the Sabbath previous to leaving for one of his va- 
cations, he writes : — "I gave the sermon I wrote last 
week, ' Shut up to the Gospel. ' I wanted to save it 
till our return from Vermont, so as not to be obliged 
to write one during vacation, but the weather was too 
fair and the audience too large to allow me to think of 
preaching an old sermon." 

Family parties and picnics, fishing excursions to 
Woodbury Pond, boat rides, excursions on foot, pitch- 
ing and raking ha}-, picking berries on the hillsides, 
resting in the shade of familiar trees, reading and con- 
versation, — these were some of the summer recreations 
of the hard-working Salem pastor. 

" Saturday, July 31. Finished our most interesting 
and pleasant visit at home, and left {or Winooski Falls, 
to visit Mr. Herrick. 

The return to Salem was marked b3 T a warm wel- 
come home. This love of the South Church congrega- 
tion for this pastor and his family never failed of warm 
expression whenever they returned after an absence. 
1 ' How many pleasant greetings we have received on 
getting home ! It seems we cannot doubt that our peo- 
ple love us. I have had today some feelings of 1111- 
worthiness of such attachment." 



PASTORATE IN SALEM. JOURNAL. 6 1 

"Aug. 22. Preached today on the 'Influence of 
Dissension on Religious Prosperity.' Text, James 3 : 
16. The state of things in our church and society has 
caused me much anxiety at times. I thought it my 
duty to preach a sermon on this general subject. T 
have carefully avoided all personal allusions, have writ- 
ten, not with the vision of men before my mind, but 
with that of truth. I trust the effort, sodden in prayer, 
ma}- be owned of the Lord. I went tremblingly to 
Church, but felt assisted while there. 

"Aug. 27. I have for the last three Friday even- 
ings been endeavoring to expound Galatians. I may 
do better by and by, but I now make poor work of 
it, and it is quite unsatisfactory to the people. Many 
wry faces appear at the announcement of the subject. 
I do feel as if there is a way in which the Word of God 
can be made interesting by exposition, but fear I shall 
not find it. I wish I had more capability in that direc- 
tion, or our people more patience. 

"Sept. 5. Had a precious occasion in administer- 
ing the Lord's Supper today, although at times nearly 
overpowered by my feelings. God give me more for- 
titude of mere physical sympathy, to bear what he re- 
veals to my heart ! 

" Sept. 19. Received this morning the joyful intel- 
ligence that Melvin is indulging the hope that he is a 
Christian. I have long felt anxious for him. He has 
had the advantages of an education, and it seems so 
sad to have an educated man irreligious. Many are 
the prayers I have offered for him. I find an entry 
in my Journal (March 15th) that I would daily pray 
for his convict T on and salvation. This purpose, when 
formed, was to continue a month. At the expiration of 
that time it was renewed, and continued a month long- 



62 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. 

er ; then my faith and importunity gave over. But how 
the Lord has reproached me ! How he seems to chide 
my want of faith, and yet w T hat a glorious chiding ! 

" Friday, Sept. 24. Finished Galatians tonight. Our 
people, at first, murmured a good deal to have me oc- 
cupy Friday evening with exposition, but I thought 
it profitable. I think I have made some progress in 
learning the art of making exposition interesting and 
profitable ; but I will not give our people too much of 
a good thing, and hence for the present will return to 
the old course of lectures on diverse subjects. 

"Oct. 29. Webster's funeral was today. I have 
never known a death of a public man which has awak- 
ened so many manifestations of regard in the commu- 
nity where I have lived. Webster was the pride of 
Massachusetts. 

"Oct. 31. Dr. preached this morning on the 

death of Webster, giving many interesting reminis- 
cences. It appears that he and Webster were three 
years in college together. * * * 

"All the discourse relating to Webster was fresh, 
vigorous and highly interesting. ' ' 



CHAPTER VIII. 

PASTORATE IN SALEM. CORRESPONDENCE. 

" Nov. 3. Went to New York, to see Jane and Mr. 
Hale sail for California. 

11 Nov. 7. In the evening the Farewell Meeting- 
was held in Dr. Smith's church. It was a solemn, hap- 
py and interesting meeting.'' 

This company of Missionaries was the third to go 
out from the Bast to California, under the auspices of 
the American Home Missionary Societv. The part}' 
consisted of Revs. J. G. Hale, W. C. Pond, Samuel B. 
Bell,S. S. Harmon, James Pierpont, K. B. Walsworth, 
Thomas Condon and Obed Dickinson, with their wives, 
and two of them with three children each. In the 
farewell service Mr. Dwdnell took a part. California, 
at that time, was little less than a foreign mission field. 
The departure of these sixteen Christian workers, 
whom Mr. Dwinell spoke of "as a precious gospel 
group, " deeply interested him. It renewed his inter- 
est in California, where in his later years he labored 
side by side with some of these same Home Missiona- 
ries, whom the Trade Wind carried on their way to 
the future great commonwealth of the Pacific coast. 

It was in April of this year that Mr. Dwinell began 
a series of letters to The Pacific, the oldest religious 
newspaper in California. His nom de plume was Naum- 
keag, the Indian name of Salem. Over thirty of these 
letters were written and published, treating cf current 



64 ISRAEL EDSON DWINEIX. 

affairs in church and nation. He was influenced in 
writing them by a desire to help the brethren in the 
far West, in their efforts to establish Christian influen- 
ces in the cities and mining camps that had so recently 
sprung into being. 

These letters were cordially received. ' ' I wish to 
express the gratitude of the editors of The Pacific for 
your kind letters," wrote one of the editorial staff. 
"They are highly appreciated, and are spoken of with 
interest here. " " We are working for our lives in Cal- 
ifornia," wrote this same friend. "I think we can 
save The Pacific with a ' pull all together ' ; but while 
we do it, or try to, in money matters, do help us with 
the pen." 

A few years later came word from the same source : 
" The scope and contents of your former letters are 
what we need again. Not that we would tax you ev- 
ery mail or every month, perhaps, but that you would 
write a letter now and then, say four or six a year. 
We need help in our hard warfare, and your former 
faithful correspondence showed that yow felt with us 
and for us in it. * * * We would like, if it were 
best, to subtract yon from New England and add you to 
our little Pacific band ; but if this may not be we will 
still ask you to give us the favor of half a dozen letters 
or so a year. * * * " 

His pen soon announced to the readers of The Pacific 
"the fact of returning consciousness and activity," 
and more letters followed, which gave equal satisfac- 
tion with those that had preceded. 

But during these years in Salem his pen was occa- 
sionally brought into requisition by papers nearer 
home. According to the testimony of some legislators, 
interested in the cause of Temperance, six articles writ- 



PASTORATE IN SALEM. CORRESPONDENCE. 65 

ten by Mr. Dwinell, and published in the Salem Reg- 
ister in 1851-52, were influential in arousing public 
opinion in favor of introducing into Massachusetts the 
" Maine Liquor Law. ' ' His interest in the cause of 
Temperance, as evinced by his addresses, and entries 
in his Journal, has already been referred to. 

In 1855 the question of a lay delegation in the Gen- 
eral Association of Massachusetts was raised, and set- 
tled in the negative. Thereupon it was proposed to 
form a General Conference, in which the churches as 
well as ministers should be represented. In the dis- 
cussion that followed this proposition Dr. Dwinell gave 
vigorous expression to his love for the Congregational 
polity. In four articles, published in The Congrega- 
tionalist of Boston, he advocated the formation of a 
General Conference. "It is in relation to its combining 
power, its ability to meet the social wants of a large 
Christian community, that Congregationalism in Massa- 
chusetts is faulty, if at all. As a system it needs to be 
complemented by something which shall not impair its 
individualizing power, nor the integrity of the individ- 
ual churches, but which shall take them up into a 
greater and living unity, make them all throb with a 
common life, and, by a quick sympathy, experience 
each other's burdens. * * * 

' ' We do not want ecclesiastical centralization ; but 
centralization of some kind we must have. The habit 
of the age demands it, and it is not a habit to be re- 
gretted, nor to be resisted. It is for us merely a ques- 
tion of time. 

******** 

' ' A General Conference would be composed of pastors 
and laymen, thus having the very life blood of the 
churches in it. And, strange to say, Congregational- 
ism in Massachusetts, which boasts, and justly, of its 



66 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. 

power to develop and give individuality and strength 
to the character of la3 T men, has no general organiza- 
tion in which they are represented. The clergy have 
a general association, but the laity, of whose relative 
rank in our system so much is said, and who, theoret- 
ically, stand on the same ecclesiastical level with the 
pastors , are ignored and dropped out of the account in 
the only general denominational organization we have. 
This is a glaring inconsistency in our system." 

These letters were, in fact, an earnest plea in behalf 
of the Congregational laymen of Massachusetts, with- 
out whose co-operation he felt that there could be no 
true fellowship among the churches. 

For this fellowship within the demonination he plead 
early and late. In Massachusetts he labored to pro- 
mote it through the General Conference. He firmly 
believed in applying the principle to Congregational- 
ism in the nation, hence his interest in the National 
Council ; and he most cordially welcomed the idea of 
occasional International Conferences like that in Lon- 
don in 1891, to which he was to have been a delegate, 
and before which he was invited to read a paper, his 
death occurring subsequent to the invitation. Else- 
where in this volume will be found an address upon 
Fellowship, the latest production of his pen previous to 
his death. 

One further newspaper correspondence, occurring 
during his life in Salem, should have notice here. 

Among Mr. Dwinell's classmates in Union Semi- 
nary was Alexander Parkins. In 1857 he sent to his 
old friend in Salem a cop}' of a newspaper published in 
Clarke County, Virginia, containing his salutatory as 
editor. In this editorial there was such a bold defense 
of the institution of slavery on moral grounds, that the 
Massachusetts pastor was moved to reply at length to 



PASTORATE IN SAEEM. CORRESPONDENCE. 67 

the arguments of his friend. This letter was published 
in the Virginia paper, and its author was invited — per- 
haps it were more correct to say challenged — to enter 
into a discussion of the moral aspects of slavery, 
through the columns of the paper. He w T as requested 
to prepare six letters, to which the editor promised to 
reply. 

The challenge was accepted, and tw r o letters w r ere 
published, under the title of " Northern Deliverance," 
Numbers i and 2. The letters are able and telling. 
His residence in Tennessee had made him familiar w T ith 
the system of slavey, and what he w r rote was unfamil- 
iar reading in a southern paper. The replies of the 
editor are interesting even after the lapse of a third of 
a century. 

He refers to his northern correspondent as "no un- 
distinguished member of that Priestly Caste at the 
North, which at this time in matters secular and polit- 
ical lords it over the northern mind with a more than 
priestly — an iron-clad domination. * * We are the 
people, as events w r ill very soon prove, upon whom de- 
pend more than an}^ others the destiny and progress of 
the race. We are the people of all others upon w r hom 
the world's eye, w r ith hope and admiration, is resting. 
If there is any people of whom the w r orld stands in awe 
at this time it is the Southern people of these United 
States." The letters from the North proved to be a red 
rag. The community evidently did not sustain the ed- 
itor in publishing the Northern — now happily the Na- 
tional, view of slavery. The third letter was sent to the 
South, but never published, nor was any explanation 
ever rendered for the abrupt termination of the contro- 
versy. 

We turn again to his Journal of those days, for in 
them we look behind the scenes of a busy public life, 



68 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. 

and discover that "he who appeared among his people as 
a devoted Ambassador of Jesus Christ was indeed in 
close communication with his Master and in deep sym- 
pathy with his work. He was ever enriching his own 
mind, that he might the better enjoy and present truth. 
He sought to lose himself in his work so that men might 
turn from the messenger to the message. ' ' May I lose 
sight of self in the interests of thy kingdom!" " Read 
Chalmers. The fire still burns in my bones to do mere 
for my Master, to save all the lost moments and put 
them to account. " " Closed my sermon contrasting the 
Merit and the Christ Systems. Seldom have I felt 
more interest in a subject, and never have I felt more 
deeply my dependence on Christ as my only hope. If 
this sermon blesses my people as much as it has me, it 
will do not a little good." 

" Preached to-night on the importance of the doctrine 
of Christ. Little blessed. Hindered by an effort to 
speak loud enough for a man hard of hearing to hear. ' ' 

" This p. m. preached the sermon prepared week be- 
fore last, comparing the two S3' stems — Merit and Christ. 
Was assisted toward the close, and the truth seemed to 
be carried to many hearts." 

Scarcely a month passed that he did not come into 
communication with some one whose conscience was 
aroused, whose questioning concerning the truth he 
sought to answer, and to whom the substance of his lan- 
guage was ' ' Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away 
the sin of the world." Without passing through 
marked seasons of religious revival, except in 1858, the 
church and congregation were kept in a healthful con- 
dition of growth and prosperity by the faithful minis- 
trations of its pastors, and the activity of many of its 
members . 

There were nearly two hundred accessions to the 



PASTORATE IN SALEM. CORRESPONDENCE. 69 

South Church during the fourteen years of the joint 
pastorate of Drs. Emerson and Dwinell. Outside of 
large accessions during the great awakening of 1858 the 
additions averaged one a month for thirteen years. 

Theological controversy in Eastern Massachusetts, 
early in the centum, had left its influence on the minds 
of many thoughtful ones ; and it was then, as now, a 
thoughtful community. Out of his experience at Salem 
Mr. Dwinell had sufficient material for a volume of 
"Pastor's Sketches," in character not unlike those of 
Spencer. Men and women stood at the threshold of 
the church, held back not by the worldly spirit, nor by 
cherished evil habits, nor by the inconsistencies of 
Christians, but by subtle questions that demanded clear 
reply, or by alleged skepticism that proved to be faith 
eclipsed. 

" Miss P called. Had been in great darkness, at 

times doubting the truth of revelation, of the salvation 
by Christ, of the existence of God, etc. She stated that 
this skepticism had given her great anguish. Yes, she 
said, that is the word. She said she had pray ed over it, 
but her prayers gave her no relief, and she was about 
to give up in despair. I thought I would bring her to 
self knowledge. I asked her if she would give up 
what love to God and faith in Christ she had, be it 
much or little. She said, Not for the world, although 
she was afraid she had none. I then approached her 
in another way, by asking her what was the difference 
between the desire she had to believe and love Christ, 
and loving Him. I showed her that there was no dif- 
ference ; that the one involved the other, both being 
different aspects of the same thing. The cloud rose 
from her brow. She said that so dark and skeptical 
had been her thoughts, she had been afraid to divulge 
them to others." 



70 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. 

On a certain Sabbath he had made a reference to 
Channing in his sermon. The following day he re- 
ceived a call from a parishioner who had misunderstood 
the reference. " She brought the third volume of his 
life to convince me of mistake. I had, however, pre- 
viously examined the work, and knew clearly whereof 
I affirmed." 

Of another he writes : — " His mind is fond of run- 
ning into doctrinal difficulties and cavils ; more so 
than of resting on Christ." Another came to him in 
great distress of mind, being troubled about the second 
advent of our Lord. To her inquiry, " What do you 
think of that doctrine ? " her pastor replied : " It is not 
your business to settle this or that item of belief, but 
to seek, first the kingdom of heaven, and then all need- 
ful things will follow in due course." Later she told 
him that from that time it seemed as if she had received 
a blow on her heart that had crushed her. "She 
hoped that I would say something that would divert 
her mind from the pressure of duty. But God made 
my word to deepen the influences of His Spirit in her 
heart. She said that it had cost her a great struggle 
to come here, and she had turned back three times, but 
finally persevered." This inquirer was long coming 
to the wicket gate, but site came. 

These cases will serve as illustrations of the religious 
conviction and unrest of many Salem pilgrims, to 
whom Mr. Dwinell was an Evangelist accompanying 
them to the wicket gate ; a Good-will opening the gate 
and pointing the way to the house of the Divine Inter- 
preter, who reveals the "place somewhat ascending" 
upon which stands a cross, at the foot of which " the 
burden is loosed from off the shoulders and falls off 
the back." 



CHAPTER IX. 

REVISITS JONESBORO. 

Six years had now passed since the marriage of Mr. 
and Mrs. Dwinell. They had not revisited Jonesboro, 
the early home of the one, the scene of the other's life 
as an instrnctor. 

Gradually the purpose was formed to make the long 
journey, and plans were made to spend the spring in 
Tennessee. 

"A rich black silk dress came as a present to Re- 
becca. She thinks it is an indication of Providence 
that we should go to Tennessee this season. Miss 
Shepard was the one who moved in the matter. How 
active her benevolence and how warm her heart." 

"Begun to think today about going to Tennessee 
this spring. ' ' After consultations with the Senior Pas- 
tor and the Church Committee the trip was taken, the 
church giving a tangible token of their personal inter- 
est in his welfare, and a renewed manifestation of their 
confidence in and attachment to their pastor and spirit- 
ual teacher. 

The journey from New York was via Washington 
and Richmond, thence on the James river to Lynch- 
burg, between banks claimed both by snow-banks and 
spring flowers. Out from the furious snows of a late 
northern April they came, after a week of travel, into 
the soft air of Tennessee. This change of climate and 
rest from labor were especially valuable to Mr. Dwi- 



72 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. 

nell. The climate of Salem with its raw east winds 
had already begun to affect his throat and lungs unfav- 
orably. Frequent colds that were not easily overcome 
had begun to cause him some anxiety. Conscientious 
to the last degree, nothing short of absolute necessity 
restrained him from meeting every engagement to 
preach, however severe the weather and however irri- 
tated his throat. The southern air was welcome balm, 
but as usual vacation found him preaching, and on the 
Sabbath he was oftener in the pulpit than in the pew. 

On the return home, while traveling b}^ packet on 
the James river, Mr. and Mrs. Dwinell obtained their 
last glimpse of slavery in its more repulsive form. In 
his Journal, the former refers to his great distress at 
seeing several large gangs of negroes — women and 
children as well as men — under slave-drivers, laboring 
in the corn and tobacco fields. In the old Jonesboro 
home which had been revisited, the humane master, 
upon his death-bed a few } 7 ears before, had made pro- 
vision whereby all the servants on the Maxwell estate 
should secure their freedom ; but slavery in its milder 
as well as in its severer types was abhorrent to one 
who had been reared among the Green Mountains. 
''God does not make the new-born being a slave," he 
wrote ; "it is the legal code which does that." " The 
system as it exists in the South is a system of enslav- 
ing as well as slave holding, and as such is inconsist- 
ent with the obvious rights of the enslaved, as such is 
unreasonable and unwarranted." 

The home-coming was, as usual, a joyous one to the 
travelers and the waiting parish. The years that fol- 
lowed brought abundance of work, the details of which 
are sufficiently indicated in what has been already pre- 
sented. 



REVISITS JOXESBORO. 73 

Among those who sought him out and visited him 
was his college friend, Rev. A. B. Rich, whom he calls 
his old friend and religious adviser, at that time pastor 
at Beverly. He was among the friends of whom he 
never lost sight. During the years '57 and '58 Rev. 
C. L. Goodell — then a student at Andover Seminary — ■ 
came from time to time to the home in Salem. Con- 
cerning one of these visits Mr. Dwinell writes : 

"June 27, 1858. Bro. Goodell of Andover Theo- 
logical Seminary spent the Sabbath with me. He 
preached in the morning on the text, 'Keep thy heart 
with all diligence for out of it are the issues of life.' 
His voice and manner were very impressive and at- 
tractive, and his matter good and somewhat novel — at 
least'fresh. 

' ' In the evening he preached another excellent ser- 
mon : ' Teaching for doctrines the commandments of 
men.' I think Brother Goodell is destined to be a 
useful laborer in the vineyard, and to make a more 
than ordinarily favorable impression." 

Upon his return to Andover Mr. Goodell wrote to Mr. 
Dwinell a letter, which reveals his own consecrated spirit 
and his confidence in the counsels of his Salem friend : 
' ' Since my pleasant visit to Salem, I have thought 
much of what I said to you on the subject of place, and 
feared lest I seemed to you to deny my Savior, and as- 
pire beyond my measure of strength or grace. I may 
deceive myself — it is very easy to on such a subject; 
but it is my daily prayer to be a useful and devoted 
minister of Christ, and to receive that discipline of 
God's hand, whatever it may be, which I need to over- 
come and lie passive in his hand, and yield an entire 
and cheerful obedience to his will. And now as the 
work op?ns before me, I would begin at the foot of the 
6 



74 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELE. 

cross, as I love my Savior and hope for strength only in 
Him. My real desire, in my consultation with you, is 
to spread before you the whole subject — since you were 
kind enough to manifest an interest in me, and also 
know all from experience — and receive your counsel, 
for I knew you would not , consciously advise me 
wrong. I would know my whole duty to Christ as his 
servant, and meet it. I can have strength and be 
happy only as I do. But more than that, his love con- 
strains me. I left you feeling that I had carried the 
impression that I was worthy, and could get what the 
world calls a good place, and that it was not my su- 
preme desire to do my Master's will. Not for my own 
sake, but for Christ's sake, through whose grace alone 
I am what I am, I would not have you feel so. When 
I first thought of being a minister I was too proud to 
tell all my friends that I was to be a poor servant of 
my Master. It was a bitter sin. It has cost me much 
sorrow. Now that I am to commence the work in- 
deed, I would not repeat my sin ; for to Christ I owe 
all, and whatever else fails, I must not be untrue to 
Him. My day in Salem though a very anxious was a 
very happy one. I am not unmindful of your kind 
and considerate attention to me. I am happy that God 
has so blessed you in your labors, and shall always 
hear with pleasure of your growing usefulness in the 
cause of our Redeemer. * * * 

' ' Ever truly yours, 

" C. L. Goodell." 

The ordination of Mr. Goodell occurred at New Brit- 
ain, Conn., Feb. 2, 1859. Mr. Dwinell was invited to 
sit on the Council and to preach the sermon. In his 
Journal he refers to the event, saying : " Bro. Goodell 









REVISITS JONESBORO. 75 

appeared well in the examination, seeing through the 
questions, answering them briefly and to the point, 
and knowing when he had answered them. The 
preaching of the sermon I did not enjoy much, being 
too much fagged out to begin with. The other exer- 
cises passed off very well. ' ' Of the discourse Mr. Good- 
ell wrote the following day : "Mr. Dwinell's sermon 
was excellent." 



CHAPTER X. 

ASSOCIATE EDITOR, CONTRIBUTOR. 

In the autumn of 1858 Mr. Dwinell joined the Win- 
throp Club of Boston. Its objects are social, literary 
and aesthetic, from a religious point of view. It has 
included in its membership some of the most eminent 
Congregational ministers in the vicinity of Boston. At 
the time referred to Rev. A. L. Stone D.D. was Pres- 
ident, and Rev. H. M. Dexter D.D. was Secretary. 
The fellowship of kindred minds and hearts in the 
Winthrop Club was a great stimulus to Mr. Dwinell. 
He felt honored by being received into membership 
with them, and was himself an honor to the Club. Aft- 
er his removal to California he was still treated as a 
member, and up to the time of his death received no- 
tices of their annual meetings. 

Councils of ordination or of installation were not infre- 
quent in the vicinity of Salem, and the South Church 
pastors often had a part in the public services. Literary 
institutes and lyceums sought the services of Mr. Dwi- 
nell from time to time. Occasionally he prepared with 
his usual carefulness an article to be offered for publi- 
cation to the Bibliotheca Sacra or the New Engla?ider, 
in each of which there were published, during his 
Salem pastorate, three articles. 

In this connection it is interesting to trace the his- 
tory of a rejected manuscript. At the time of his death 
he was one of the Associate Editors of the Bibliotheca 



78 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELE. 

Sacra, and his contributions had been for years wel- 
comed by the Editors in Chief ; yet it was not always 
so, as will appear in extracts from his Journal. Suc- 
cess, oftener than we think, has its beginning in de- 
feat. Disappointment is a spur to achievement. 

" 1853, April 2. Have been occupied this week in 
divers things, but mainly in preparing a plan and about 
one third finishing a sermon for Fast day on ' ' The 
Claims of Religion on the State," a subject lying 
rather out of my line and calling for considerable 
fresh thought. ' ' 

"April 7. Fast Day. I preached this morning on 
' ' The Claims of Religion on the State. ' ' Quite a large 
and attentive audience." 

" June 4. In the p. m. I preached my Fast day ser- 
mon. I had been requested several times to repeat 
it, and that none might come in the p. m. expecting a 
fresh discourse, I gave notice of the repetition at the 
close of the morning service. I think there were those 
who were grateful for this notice, as their seats were 
unoccupied in the evening." 

"Oct. 16. Preached in Lowell." 

" Oct. 17. Came home via Andover. Had a dispo- 
sition to offer my discussion, " The Claims of Religion 
on the State," to the editors of the Bibliotiieca Sacra , 
for publication. I felt very timid in doing it, but 
fought my way up through all scruples, and resolved 
to call on Mr. Taylor, senior editor, but heard he was 
not in town after reaching Andover ; hence there was 
no other course left but to beard the lion (Prof. Park — 
I was afraid of him) in his den. On calling at his 
house, however, I learned that he was not in town. I 
then called at Mr. Taylor's, and rejoiced to learn that 
he was within. He had no time to give to the subject 






ASSOCIATE EDITOR, CONTRIBUTOR. 79 

today, but wished me to leave the manuscript for future 
examination. This was much against my will. But 
my purpose was made up to offer it, and I would not 
back out. I feel in this way : if it is rejected it will do 
me good ; if published, I believe it will do others good- 
So I very composedly abide the decision, sure, what- 
ever it may be, it will be the means of good. " 

"Oct. 23. I received yesterday the manuscript I 
had left with Mr. Taylor in Andover, accompanied by 
a note in which he says he had read it with much in- 
terest, and he thought the views very important, and 
the train of thought very happy. It had not been sub- 
mitted to Prof. Park, but was returned to me as I re- 
quested, for revision, etc. This quite encouraged me. " 

"Dec. 31. Received the manuscript (referred to 
above) from Prof. Park. Rejected, but eased off with 
complimentary roundings, such as, "excellent" "very 
good'' fitted for the New Englander, etc., but too gen- 
eral to suit the character of the Bibliotheca Sacra." I 
trust that this experience will do me good, and mod- 
erate my ambition, if nothing more." 

This article, rejected by the Bibliotheca Sacra, was 
subsequently accepted by the New Englander, and ap- 
peared in the issue for November, 1854. 

Following is an extract : 

' ' We have thus passed in review several of the par- 
ticulars into which the great claim of religion, that the 
State should exert a vast uplifting moral influence, di- 
vides itself. We have seen that the State should not 
only meet the public conscience, but join on to it at the 
point of its highest and most healthful expression, and 
in such a way to carry it higher ; that as far as it goes 
it should act in accordance with the principles of right 
and justice, and present to its subjects the sublime and 



8o ISRAEL EDSON DWINEIX. 

elevating spectacle of State innocence and righteous- 
ness ; and that in all possible cases it should make 
the line of legislation coincident with the line of ac- 
knowleged moral principle, and thus bear up the public 
conscience to a loftier altitude. 

' ' For the purpose of gathering the whole into one 
view, let us by rapid steps traverse again the region 
over which this discussion has led us. Religion claims 
of the State, as the golden consummation, that it should 
be regenerate and holy ; but this result is reached only 
in the ideal future. Meanwhile it contents itself with 
subordinate and inferior demands ; on the one hand 
negatively, that it should not fitfully and foolishly 
snatch at visionary millennial ideas, and force them 
into impracticable law ; that it should not thrust itself 
between man and God, and embarrass his responsibility 
to Him ; and that it should not interfere with those 
moral questions which are detached from the rights of 
others and the public weal : and on the other hand, pos- 
itively, that it should join itself on the topmost wave of 
the public conscience to swell a higher tide ; that it 
should act in strict accordance with justice and right ; 
and so lift the people to a higher justice and right ; 
and that it should in complex civil and moral cases be 
careful to act on the moral principle involved, and thus 
make law itself a vast moral leverage to lift them still 
higher heavenward. 

" A State meeting these demands would be a sublime 
Spectacle, such as the earth has not witnessed, and may 
not witness soon. But what part of these claims can 
religion dispense with ? In what particular have they 
been exaggerated ? Have the negative been made too 
low, or the positive too high? If, then, these are the 
claims of religion, we have here the principles on which 



ASSOCIATE EDITOR, CONTRIBUTOR. 8 1 

all good men should combine for harmonious and health- 
ful political action. Here the radical and conservative 
should meet and join hands ; the radical, for if these po- 
sitions are true, legislation in advance of them would 
defeat its own ends, and dwarf rather than elevate so- 
ciety ; the conservative, for if they are true, legislation 
below them would also defeat itself by coming short of 
a healthful moral vitality, and thus weaken and impair 
the State, and in the end destroy it. 

"No doubt the noisy and inconsiderate importuni- 
ties on the part of radicals, and the equally impatient 
and inconsiderate refusals on the part of the conserva- 
tives, would mutually give way and melt into one, if 
these opposing elements of society should arise to a calm 
and dispassionate contemplation and espousal of truth. 
And it is believed that if the friends of religion and the 
friends of the State would calmly look at the nature of 
the relation of the former to the latter, they might easily 
find a common line of procedure lying not far from one 
side of the one here indicated ; walk in harmony and 
love ; the State be made vigorous and healthful by their 
union ; innocence be protected, conscience vindicated, 
and society borne rapidly forward up the ascending 
scale of intelligence, virtue and piety. " 

A year later the New Englandzr published a second 
article written by Mr. Dwinell. It has the title : ' ' Self- 
Development, Not Aggression, the True Policy of Our 
Nation." 

1 ' The characteristic difference between the two 
methods, " he says, " may be briefly stated in this way : 
The one seeks by some means — by arms, acquisitions, 
alliances — to bring greatness to itself ; the other by 
some means — by the arts and vitalities of peace — to 
bring greatness out of itself. 



■82 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. 

' ' The latter we regard as the true policy for every 
nation to adopt, but especially tor this one.'' 

The object of the article was to enforce and illustrate 
this position, and to point out some of the sources of 
danger that our country may eventually be drawn into 
by the opposite course. 

" Patriotism," he says, " cannot be imported. The 
State cannot stipulate with its neighbors to have its cit- 
izens made thoughtful, inte ligent and wise. It cannot 
by some brilliant stroke of arms rob them of their vir- 
tue, and distribute it within its own borders. It cannot 
seize on piety abroad, and compel it to grace its trium- 
phal procession on its return home. It may gather from 
the nation choice, religious, moral and scientific 
teachers ; but this does not make the people sound and 
strong at heart, sound and strong in mind and will. 
That can only be developed. It must be wrought out 
from within. It must be a growth, and requires time, 
and quiet, and effort. It is, therefore, a general princi- 
ple, that true national strength is the result of growth 
and not of aggression." 

In 1857 he ventured to " beard the lion in his den" 
once more. An article, ' ' Advance in the Type of Re- 
vealed Religion," was accepted by Prof. Park and pub- 
lished. So able a critic as Prof. Shedd, then of Ando- 
ver Seminary, wrote concerning it : " May I thank you 
for the great pleasure and profit I derived from 3^our ar- 
ticle in the last Bibliotheca Sacra. It has been read 
with much interest by thoughtful persons, I happen to 
know." 

The concluding paragraphs of this article are as fol- 
lows : 

"It is then, one of the leading features of Jewish 
piety, that it busies itself in reverently copying forms. 



ASSOCIATE EDITOR, CONTRIBUTOR. 83 

It has a rule for everything. It has a chart of duty, 
and shows its genuineness by sincerely threading its 
lines and never crossing them. It is always looking at 
its map, and trying to steer its course according to it. 
It is a leading feature of Christian piety, on the other 
hand, that it aims to be true to Christian principle. 
It is not copying a form, but living a spiritual law. It 
thinks less of the deed than of the heart. It varies the 
act at pleasure, provided that it be a true expression of 
a true spirit. Under the one system the design was that 
the observance should draw the character after it and 
mould it ; under the other, the design is first to secure 
a right character, and then allow right observance to 
flow from it. The one looked more at what man does ; 
the other at what he is. 

" Again, in the one case, true piety is exclusively to 
be looked for within a single visible national commun- 
ity, and true worship to center around a single temple ; 
in the other, piety is not confined to communities but 
dispositions, nor worship to temples but hearts. Hence, 
in the one instance, much w T as thought of an uninter- 
rupted line of outward descent ; in the other, much of 
this, and only of this — a fresh and personal spiritual 
birth and life. 

' ' We may also see the greater spirituality of the gos- 
pel piety in the greater spirituality of the gospel reve- 
lation. Truth is the food of piety. And the truth of 
the Old Testament, taken as a whole, is far less naked, 
concentrated, spiritual, than that of the New. In the 
one case it appears in the shell ; in the other, in the ker- 
nel ; in the one, thrown into outward and concrete 
forms ; in the other, having a purer and more faithful 
expression. Even the moral law, which in the Old 
Testament is broken up and expanded into ten concrete 



84 ISRAEL EDSOX DWIXELL. 

bulks, is in the New condensed and brought out in two 
simple spiritual elements — love to God and to man. 
In the former one finds truths, in the latter Truth. 

' ' Moreover the piety of the earlier and ruder period 
was largely dependent on symbols and helps addressed 
to the senses. God instructed men in righteousness 
with sensible illustrations. The Mosaic was emphatic- 
ally the pictorial dispensation addressed to piety in its 
childhood ; and the designs were impressive, forcible, 
thrilling, rather than delicate, chaste, artistic. But 
during the gospel period such symbols are net relied 
on, and piety is left to go over to and rest en spiritual 
supports. God has carried it beyond the primer dispen- 
sation. Faith has little to aid it, short of the unseen 
and eternal. It has lost its material wings, and can fly 
only as it has spiritual ones. 

"And again, the ideal future that fills the mind of 
the Christian is far more sp ritual than that which fills 
the mind of the Jew. The latter had in view a scene 
of earthly splendors, and the pageantry and magnifi- 
cence of an earthly Messiah, under whese realm all 
other nations should hide their heads. And his relig- 
ions aspirations and experiences dropped down to a 
kindred level. But the ideal future of the former takes 
in the spiritual triumphs of the cress in this world, and 
the spiritual glory that is to follow in the next. Its 
reaches are spiritual, heavenly, divine ; and hence his 
aspirations and experiences, swinging in a kindred orb- 
it, rise to the spiritual, heavenly and divine also. The 
church is far, however, from having exhausted the spir- 
ituality of the gospel. Higher and even higher attain- 
ments in this direction lie before her. And here again 
we remark, that, to make them she needs no new rev- 
elation, only a higher reaching after and possessing 



ASSOCIATE EDITOR, CONTRIBUTOR. 85 

of the spiritual elements of the word of God already 
in her hands. 

" In this way, then, we answer the question, 'How 
has God proceeded to give religion to man ? ' What 
wisdom is here displayed by Him ! What adaptation ! 
What benevolence ! And how wise, too, to select a sin- 
gle people in the first instance, isolate them, and carry 
on a process of religious training with them alone, un- 
distracted by foreign interference, till they had reached 
sufficient maturity to allow the removal of all restric- 
tions, and receive the commission to carry the gospel 
to the ends of the earth. And how encouraging to 
the modern church, on whom this commission is de- 
volved, to consider that, when she carries the gospel to 
the heathen, it is not elementary religion she gives 
them, but religion with thousands of years' growth upon 
it ! It may require a century for her to give it to them, 
or for them to receive it ; but when it is received 
they do not get the baldness and simplicity of the Pa- 
triarchal faith ; they do not get Judaism, or the contro- 
versies of the Augustinian period ; they do not get Mo- 
nasticism, nor the superstitions of the Middle Ages, 
nor the intolerance of later times. They get the spir- 
itual and living religion which we have. They step 
at a stride across all the distance traversed by the 
church in religious growth. They emerge at once from 
the moral region of the flood, or beyond it, to the sum- 
mit of the nineteenth century. 

il We close our rapid survey by remarking that it be- 
comes the modern church to remember her true histor- 
ical position. The ages have been struggling for her. 
The victories of the past are hers. All time has been 
in travail to give her birth. Her proper place and at- 
titude is to stand on the summit of the religious achieve- 



86 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. 

ments hitherto made, with her eye gleaming with Di- 
vine light, fixed on higher achievements in the future. 
Let her not turn backwards. Let her not take to her 
bosom any of the old and lower types of religion, nor 
hold to them with clutched hands. Let her live more 
in the future than the past, obeying the Divine direc- 
tion which Moses was commanded to communicate to 
the ancient church, but which contains the spirit of 
God's perennial call to the church of every age : 
' Speak unto the children of Israel that they go for- 
ward.' " 

In the New Eng/ander for November, 1857, there ap- 
peals from Mr. Dwinell's pen, an able and forcible arti- 
cle on " Spiritualism Tested by Christianity." 

Mr. Dwinell states at the outset that he shall enter 
into no controversy with Spiritualists in reference to 
the alleged phenomena or " manifestations." His po- 
sition is, admitting more or less of them to be " pure" 
and genuine — a point which he does not here attempt 
to prove or disprove — that there is yet abundant evidence 
to satisfy a Christian community that they are not at- 
tributable to the agency of disembodied spirits. His 
controversy with Spiritualism is in regard to its claims 
as a religious system, not the phenomena involved. 

The objections which he makes on this ground are : 
that it presents a religious system which is radically 
inconsistent with that of the Bible ; that there is a fun- 
damental defect in its logic — it being of that primitive 
and precipitate kind, where the love of wonder over- 
powers that of science ; that it is a progression back- 
wards, a reversal of chronology and history, to a style 
of culture and theology before and below Revelation ; 
that the disclosures, both in manner and contents, 
clearly indicate the source of the intelligence in the phe- 



ASSOCIATE EDITOR, CONTRIBUTOR. 87 

nomeua to be in the circle, not in the spirits outside o*[ 
it ; that it is simple materialism ; and, lastly, that its 
influence in the lower, corporeal and mental sphere is 
injurious, — and in the higher, spiritual and religious 
sphere, unsettling and fatal. These several points are 
argued and illustrated with a force and felicity indica- 
tive of a strong, thoughtful and cultivated mind, and 
skillful reasoning powers. 

In conclusion, Mr. Dwinell ventures some sensible 
advice in reference to the way in which this field of 
research should be occupied. " Here, it may be," he 
says, ' l is a subtle and difficult department of natural 
science to be explored and laid open. It is no reproach 
to the intelligence, the ability, or the honesty of persons 
in the ordinary walks of life, if they should feel that 
they are incompetent to do it. And no less incompe- 
tent are judges, lawyers, physicians and clergymen, 
who have been trained in other professions, and who, 
from the fact that they have succeeded and become emi- 
nent therein, where their specialty is, are not the more 
but the less qualified to investigate the subject. It is a 
vein for the working of the natural philosopher. None 
but those who intend to give years to it as a branch of 
science, and to study it, as far as in them lies, as Bow- 
ditch studied mathematics, or Newton astronomy, or 
Kant the mind, should throw away their time on it ; 
for no good will come of superficial dabbling in it, only 
evil. Let the natural and mental philosopher take 
hold of it ; and others, who may be destitute of the 
qualifications, leisure, or inclination thoroughly to in- 
vestigate it, and who have accredited science at hand 
as much as they can master, can afford to await the 
results of his more thorough and successful studies." 

"Baptism a Consecratory Rite" appeared in the Bib- 



88 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. 

liotheca Sacra in January, 1858, and " Union of the 
Divine and the Human in the Externals of Christi- 
anity " was published in the same Quarterly in July, 

i859. 

At the meeting of the General Association of Massa- 
chusetts, in 1859, Mr. Dwinell read a paper on the 
' ' Adaptation of Congregationalism for the Work f Home 
Missions."' It was a time of much anxiety and feel- 
ing on the subject of co-operation with, the Presby- 
terians. Wise, healthful words were needed from those 
who undertook to discuss the subject. The article 
attracted the attention of such men as Drs. Badger, 
Todd, Blagden and Pres. Humphrey, who expressed 
their gratification. It was repeatedly said that the 
paper gave the key-note to the meeting. At the re- 
quest of the editors, it was soon published in the Con- 
gregational Quarterly, in October, 1859. 

An essay on the ' ' Importance of Christian Fellow- 
ship among the Churches, " was read before the Gen- 
eral Conference of Massachusetts at Springfield, in 
September, i860, and was published with the minutes 
of that body. 

The last of his published articles while in Salem was 
a sermon delivered to his own congregation, and at 
their request published as a pamphlet. 

It is entitled " Hope for Our Country." His address 
was delivered October 19, 1862, during dark and try- 
ing days in the Civil War. 

Its words were those of the Christian Patriot, whose 
faith in the ultimate triumph of freedom and in the 
abiding unity of our country never failed him. 

"I cannot believe," he says, "no, never, never, 
that this is the time when God will overthrow Fiee- 
dom, and the ideas of Right and Humanity He has 



ASSOCIATE EDITOR, CONTRIBUTOR. 89 

been slowly working out into practice for thousands 
of years, and inaugurate the Evangel of Slavery, the 
satanic creed of Despotism and Selfishness. " 

"Let us, then, hold up our faces where the light 
from above may fall on them and be reflected around 
us; and no longer carry them downward where earthly 
mists and exhalations darken them, and thus use us in 
diffusing and increasing the gloom. And as we thus 
become strong within, let those around us, let the 
Cause, let our Country have the benefit of it. Let us 
bear our part of the troubles of the times with firm 
hearts ; quicken and encourage one another, and give 
the Government, our brave men in the field, and all in 
earnest in suppressing the rebellion, the advantage of 
a cheerful and hopeful spirit, warm sympathy, and 
effectual support and devotion. Thus shall we be 
serene, peaceful, hopeful, confident, and in the end 
successful. ' ' 



CHAPTER XI. 

CLOSE OF SALEM PASTORATE. 

As might be supposed, a pastor so faithful, a 
preacher so able, a thinker so profound, was not shut 
up to Salem. Formally or informal^, he was invited 
to several pastorates in New England and in the Mis- 
sissippi Valley, and to a professorship in his Alma 
Mater, at Burlington. 

In the Autumn of i860 there came to him an urgent 
appeal to become pastor of the First Congregational 
Church in Oakland, California, a newly-organized 
congregation in the then small but growing city. 
This church, under the leadership of its two pas- 
tors, — first, Rev. George Mooar, D.D., and later Rev. 
J. K. McLean, D.D., — has become the largest and 
one of the most prosperous churches of the Pilgrim 
faith on the Pacific Coast. The invitation to this 
young church received Mr. D win ell's serious consider- 
ation, both because of his interest in California, and 
because of some unfavorable conditions of his own 
health, attributable to the harsh east winds in Salem. 
Personal friends supplemented with arguments the in- 
vitation of the church. " I am so deeply convinced, " 
wrote one of these friends, " that }^ou could do a great 
good by coming here now, that I don't know how in 
any letter to express it. There is not in prospect a 
rapid growth into a large church, for the population is 
not enough, but it is a solid, sure beginning, and your 



92 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. 

influence in state, moral, religious and educational 
matters will be wide and is much needed. * * * 
Here is a direct, solid call. May the Lord direct 3 T our 
way hither soon. ' ' 

The time had not yet come when he felt that he 
could leave Salem. There were too many evidences of 
his usefulness, too deep a satisfaction in his work, too 
strong a tie binding him to the church and commun- 
ity, to convince him that this call from the far West 
was the call of God. Soon, however, he was driven 
out of Salem; not like Roger Williams, against whom 
the General Court in 1635 pronounced the sentence of 
exile, and who has made the name of his city of ref- 
uge a monument to Divine Providence, but like many 
of more recent times, whom the relentless east winds 
of Massachusetts Bay have driven westward to some 
Providence beyond the Rock}^ Mountains. 

After being in Salem a few years, Mr. Dwinell be- 
gan to be sensitive to the climate. In his Journal he 
made frequent reference to colds that affected his 
throat, occasionally interrupting his public ministra- 
tions for a Sabbath or two. Thus, in April, 1859, we 
read : — " Evening. Undertook to preach, but was so 
hoarse that I could only report the heads of the argu- 
ment, after speaking awhile. The house was quite 
full, there being settees in the aisles. It was a great 
disappointment to me. The people showed much sym- 
pathy. Joseph H. Towne sent me home in a car- 
riage." 

"Oct. 9. Exchanged with Dr. Worcester. Gave 
' Revelation of Clirist in the Soul.' Rainy. Had a 
cold and little freedom." 

" Dec. 18. Mr. F was to preach for me this morn- 
ing, but a severe eastern storm set in, and prevented 



CLOSE OF SALEM PASTORATE. 93 

the arrangement from going into effect. I had to stir 
aronnd, preaching an extempore sermon from a plan 
previously made. There were only about one hundred 
present, and as I had a cold the discourse went off 
rather poorly." 

On the twenty-fifth of June, i860, more serious 
symptoms of throat trouble appeared, which led him to 
lengthen his summer vacation in Vermont to two 
months. Concerning this summer's rest, he wrote : 
" On the whole, I have had a pleasant time, my health 
being sufficiently good to enjoy it. God has been very 
good to us, infinitely better than I deserve. " 

" Feb. 8, 1861. This was the ' Cold Friday ' from 
time immemorial. It came on with a fearfully sudden 
change, the mercury sinking more than sixty degrees 
in less than a day. Yet this was the night for the re- 
opening of our church [after extensive repairs]. The 
house was quite well filled. I preached the sermon, 
defining our position in the religious world. 

A few days later he refers to a cold in his head. 

"March 3, a. m. Gave " Going Back from Jesus." 
Was much interested in it, though somewhat hoarse." 

' ' Evening. In consequence of hoarseness I did not 
think it best to attend the monthly concert. " 

" On the Saturday following the graver symptoms 
re-appeared. I at once thought that this was a signal 
of God's pleasure that I should not continue to preach 
in this climate, and felt resigned, or desired to be wholly 
resigned to the Divine will. I at once fell back on the 
sovereignty and goodness of God, and found wonderful 
support and comfort. I knew that though it intimated 
a great and most painful change to me personally, it 
was all right and for the best, and I desired to leave 
myself and my family wholly in his hands. I was 



94 ISRAEL KDSON DWINELL. 

thankful especially that I had been permitted to labor 
here till our Society had become so nearly settled again 
in the church. After worship I informed Rebecca, 
and we both supposed some great change now unavoid- 
able in our outward life." 

Upon consulting a physician, who seems temporarily 
to have been consulted in the absence of the regular 
medical adviser of the family , Mr. Dwinell was led to look 
less seriously upon his own condition. ' The doctor ex- 
amined my throat, and said it was evident the hemor- 
rhage was not in the lungs, but in the back part of the 
nose or throat ; that it was not necessary to seek a 
change of climate, unless for other reasons I desired it ; 
that I might continue to preach, and be governed by 
the effects." 

Acting upon this unfortunate advice, Mr. Dwinell 
fulfilled an appointment the following day. "The 
house was warm and the air close. Between this and 
my desire to favor my voice I had not much ease or 
freedom in preaching. But I was enabled to get 
through the service, without feeling any sensible injury, 
God be praised ! The house was quite full. ' ' 

' ' Monday Morning. I have had no return of the 
hemorrhage. I desire to be thankful to God. But I 
never felt so much like laying myself as a lamb on the 
altar for God to take me and do with me as he pleases 
for his glory as under this trial. Oh ! I should like to 
preach the gospel of the blessed Jesus ; but God knows 
it all, and he sees the end from the beginning, and I 
shall not be laid aside a moment too soon, and when 
his time comes, I wish to go, saying: " Thy will be 
done." 

" March. 15. Brother John Chapman called today, 
and asked me if I had had any more trouble. I in- 



CLOSE OF SALEM PASTORATE. 95 

formed him I had, and that I was put in great perplex- 
ity about it, not knowing whether to ask a leave of 
absence or send in my resignation, but fearing I should 
be obliged to do the one or the other. He said he was 
not prepared to give any advice. * * * Dr. S. 
advised a voyage. ' ' 

"March 18. Decided today, on the strength of the 
advice of Dr. S. on Friday last, to request a leave of 
absence, or to send in niy resignation for the purpose of 
having a rest, and perhaps traveling." 

A few days later he consulted Dr. Jackson, a promi- 
nent specialist in Boston. This physician found no 
evidence of lung trouble, but concluded that the diffi- 
culty was in the upper part of the throat. He did not 
think it needful to stop preaching. 

Uncertain what course to pursue, Mr. Dwinell called 
a meeting of the Society Committee and the Deacons, 
and referred the matter wholly to them. Personally, 
he regarded it as best to suspend all preaching for a few 
months, not on the ground of necessity but of expedi- 
ency; as a vacation with travel abroad might do him 
more good than a much greater sacrifice later. 

Relying upon the advice of his plrysicians, the rep- 
resentatives of the Church and Society unanimously 
desired him to continue his work, unless he should find 
from further experiment that he was suffering from 
such a course. This he consented to do. 

A month later, the unwisdom of the course he was 
taking appeared. A renewal of the throat trouble led 
him to consult Dr. Bowditch of Boston, who advised 
him to cease preaching at once, and go in'io the coun- 
try for a year. 

" I came home, wrote my letter of resignation, and 
commended myself to God. It was the most painful 



96 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. 

moment of my life, but I saw no other proper course. 
God reigns and he will take care of me and mine, and 
the dear church and people." 

"April 14, A. m. Prof. Phelps preached on 'Re- 
generation as the work of the Spirit. ' After service I 
gave him my letter of resignation, and asked him to 
read it in the afternoon." 

"p. m. Remained at home during the service with 
all our family. A sad afternoon." 

" Evening. I went to the Sabbath School concert. 

A good one. I wanted to be present with A and 

J and W , as it might be the last opportunity." 

"16th. Church meeting. The church did not vote 
to accept the resignation, but appointed a committee 
to confer with me, the general desire being that I should 
retain my pastoral connection with the church for a 
year, and then decide according to circumstances. I 
feel like leaving the whole matter in the hands of the 
Lord." 

During the week following the " Proprietors " or So- 
ciety voted unanimously, requesting him to withdraw 
the letter of resignation, and offering a year's leave of 
absence, with a salary of one thousand dollars. In 
this action the church unanimously concurred. 

This prompt and generous action of his people was 
the more noteworthy, from the fact that it took place at 
the time when the outbreak of the civil war had made 
unstable all business interests throughout the country, 
and was absorbing the interest of all classes of people. 
It was, perhaps, the crowning evidence of the confi- 
dence and the devotion of those among whom he had 
lived, and for whom he had labored in the gospel. 

On the twenty-sixth of April, 1861, he left Salem 
with his family for Calais, where he remained for over 






CLOSK OF SALKM PASTORATE. 97 

a year in the old home on the hill — the home of his 
childhood, the scene of most of his summer vacations 
during his pastorate in Salem. 

The year's rest had seemed to effect a cure. 

On his return to Salem he wrote : 

' ' Here I am again at my post. I have a long period 
blank in my Journal, but it is not blank in the good- 
ness of God to me and mine, but all filled up with it. 
Every day of my year's vacation has been crowned with 
his mercy in bestowing on me the blessing sought — a 
restoration to health. And now, O my soul, praise 
the Iyord ! I am well, and at my work again among my 
beloved people. God give me wisdom to work and yet 
preserve my health." 

"Yesterday I preached; a. m., 'Faith a Means of 
Purification, ' p. m. , ' The Coming Problems.' I preached 
easily." 

He continued to preach and do pastoral work, greatly 
rejoicing in his apparent restoration to complete health. 
He felt as a prisoner of war might have felt in the 
mighty civil conflict then raging, who had been ex- 
changed, and was out once more upon the tented field 
at the forefront of the battle. Indeed, his ministry, 
subsequent to his vacation, mingled devotion to the 
cross with enthusiasm for the flag. He could not, like 
his brethren, Rev. J. H. Thayer, then pastor of Crombie 
St. Church in Salem, and Rev. A. L. Stone in Boston, 
enlist as a chaplain, but from the pulpit he uttered " an 
outburst of patriotism" when the enlisting of soldiers in 
Salem was proceeding too slowly. He set forth the 
" Equality of Obligations to Our Country, " in his own 
and neighboring pulpits. He delivered the powerful 
sermon on "Hope for Our Country" to which refer- 
ence has already been made. 



98 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. 

On the second day of January, 1863, he writes : 
' ' Thank God ! ' ' Bells ringing for the Emancipation 
Proclamation of President Lincoln. I bless God for 
it." 

For eight or nine months he continued to labor dili- 
gently, successfully, and with rare devotion, but the 
winter winds and storms proved relentless. Before 
February was ended, it was proven conclusive^ that 
he must leave Salem. 

In April he had a conference with Rev. Dr. Treat, 
then one of the Secretaries of the American Board of 
Commissioners for Foreign Missions, with reference to 
taking the General Agency for the Board in the North- 
west. In May he visited Chicago, with this office 
in view, having been offered the position. Upon his 
return home, with the question still unsettled, he found 
a telegram awaiting him from the First Church of 
Christ (Congregational) in Sacramento, California, in- 
viting him to take charge of the church for one } T ear, 
with a view to settlement. 

This call was made upon the recommendation of his 
friend, Rev. Isaac Langworthy. After consultation 
with some of his brethren in Boston, Mr. Dwinell ac- 
cepted the call, and at once made preparation to leave 
Salem for Sacramento. 

His letter resigning his pastorate contains these 
words : ' ' This request is made at great sacrifice of 
feeling, for I part from tried friends, a forbearing and 
gracious co-laborer, the venerable senior pastor, and a 
devoted, considerate, noble people, who have made 
every expression of interest and esteem, charity and 
generosity to me and my family that I could possibly 
desire, and far more I feel than was deserved. I shall 
not leave, so far as I know, an enemy or cold friend ; 






CLOSE OF SALEM PASTORATE. 99 

and certain it is that there is not one toward whom I 
have the slightest ill-will or indifference. All nry rela- 
tions to the community, also, are most friendly and 
pleasant. 

" But there are times when questions of duty must 
be settled on higher grounds. Personal feelings, the 
preference of affection, human attachments, should all 
be sacrificed for the prospect of a longer and at the 
same time a more concentrated and continuous service 
for Christ. * * * God reigns. I desire humbly 
and trustfully to commit myself and my future to him. 
But wherever I may go, I shall carry you, and these 
delightful and blessed years, — now nearly fourteen in 
all — spent among you, in my heart ; and at the same 
time my heart will tarry with 3 t ou." 

In the reply of the Society it was said : ' ' Nothing 
but the state of his health, wmich renders it necessary 
for him to seek a milder climate, with the hope of pro- 
longing his life and usefulness, could induce us to con- 
sent to a separation of the pleasant and profitable rela- 
tions between us. " 

The church gave similar expression to the general 
feeling of regret. 

The Council called to advise with reference to the 
resignation convened on the twenty-fifth of May. Rev. 
A. B. Rich was Moderator, and Rev. H. M. Dexter was 
Scribe. In its official ' ' result " Mr. Dwinell was com- 
mended as a pastor, preacher, and a man of very rare 
qualities ; learned, thorough and effective in his pulpit 
ministrations ; in his pastoral offices wise, sympathiz- 
ing, laborious ; in his relations as a citizen, influential, 
respected and beloved." 

It was further stated: "We regard his departure 
from among us as a loss to the cause of Christ not only 



IOO ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. 

in this city, but also in this State, throughout which his 
influence was beginning to be felt as that of an earnest, 
practical and evangelical expounder of the truth." 

The Salem Register of the same date said : ' ' The 
community will lose a valued citizen, and the clergy of 
this region a brother of marked ability, shining purity 
of character, and eminent Christian virtues." 

It was said by his people in the resolutions accepting 
his resignation : ' ' Though we thus break the holy bond 
of Pastor and people, we shall ever retain for him the 
warmest friendship and affection." 

Such words are often spoken, but seldom are such 
promises fulfilled so literally and beautifully as in this 
case. Though the South Church has been exceedingly 
happy in its relations to Dr. Dwinell's successors, — at 
first Rev. E. S. Atwood D.D., who labored until death, 
and subsequently Rev. James F. Brodie, the present 
pastor, — the church and community gave enthusiastic 
welcome to their former pastor, whenever he came 
among them from his far western home. Special pains 
were taken by Dr. Atwood and the people to make his 
every return to them an occasion that should express 
their abiding affection. 

The following original hymn sung at a service in 
1874, while he was on a visit to Salem, will indicate 
the genuineness of their attachment : 

Bring voice of song, and breath of flowers 

To consecrate these joyful hours ; 
Here, where his early Bethel burns, 

The long-gone wanderer returns. 

Though Southern skies more softly glow, 

And Southern waters murmur low, 
And winds of balm blow sweet and straight 

Through the wide open Golden Gate, 



CLOSE OF SALEM PASTORATE. IOI 

Yet nowhere hearts more warmly beat 

Their welcome to his coming feet 
Than here, where once of old he trod, 

As messenger and man of God. 

The years roll up, to memory's strain 
The vanished past comes back again, 

And former friendship, tried and true, 
Makes haste its pledges to renew. 

We run to open wide the door, 

We bring the best of all our store, 
The old and young with greetings come, — 

O friend and brother, welcome home. 

Evidence yet clearer of the hold which Dr. Dwinell 
had gained upon the affections of his friends in Salem 
appears in the Memorial Service held in the South 
Church shortly after his death. The services, largely 
attended, were conducted lyy Rev. Mr. Brodie, who said 
•that upon coming to the church as pastor he had found 
unmistakable evidences of the most salutary influence 
Dr. Dwinell had exerted during his pastorate, whose 
power was still manifest in the church and community. 

Rev. N. G.Clarke, D.D., spoke of Dr. Dwinell 's early 
life. 

Prof. J. Henry Thayer, who was pastor of the 
Crombie St. Church in Salem during the latter years 
of Dr. Dwinell's residence in Salem, spoke of his 
impressions of the latter, saying : — " He did not aim 
to be a pulpit orator, nor to take his people by storm. 
He was too thoughtful for that ; he cultivated himself 
that he might cultivate his people, and was scholarly 
for their sake. He was conservative and of pronounced 
opinions. When he thought it best to preach extem- 
poraneously, he was not swerved by expostulation ; 
yet he was manly, and held the profound respect of 



102 ISRAEL EDSON DWINEU*. 

those who most differed with him. He had the cour- 
age of his convictions, as shown by the fact that when 
a colored man was to preach in Salem, at a period when 
the public had not yet realized that there is no color dis- 
tinction in the power of Christ's Gospel, he attended 
and participated in the services, notwithstanding the 
objections interposed. * * In those days the min- 
isters of Salem used to meet together to study the 
Bible in the original, as an aid in setting forth the 
truth, and it was here that Mr. Dwinell was a man of 
power. It is wonderful what success God has given to 
his faithful servants. In what other calling could such 
a meeting as this be gathered, in a town where one's 
labors had ceased more than twenty-five years ago? 
Ministers may gain inspiration from the grateful remem- 
brance in which Dr. Dwinell is still held. There is less 
love of truth, less love of God and of man on earth to- 
day, because he has gone from it. " 

Other ministers who had been associated with Dr. 
Dwinell in Christian work in Essex County added their 
tribute of esteem, and gave their testimon3 r to the rare 
fidelity, ability and success of his Salem pastorate. 

Very tender memories of his character and work 
were communicated to Mrs. Dwinell from individual 
friends who had enjoyed his ministry a quarter of a cen- 
tury before, and a telegram and letter were sent to her 
from the South Church. In the latter, communicated 
through the pastor Rev. J. F. Brodie, and the Senior 
Deacon Amos H. Johnson, it was said : 

" The sad intelligence of the sudden removal of Dr. 
Dwinell met us, as he would have desired, just as we 
were entering the house of God , which he had made to 
so many the very gate of heaven. 

"It was our Children's Day service. The pulpit 



CLOSE OF SALEM PASTORATE. IO3 

froiri which his voice was heard for so many years in 
Christian worship and testimony' was covered with 
flowers. It was to be a day of gladness. The sorrow- 
ful message brought a strain of sadness into the serv- 
ice. But the thought of him, with his work finished 
and his entrance effected upon the fullness of joy and 
blessedness above, was quite in harmom* with the occa- 
sion, lending it a solemn depth and tenderness. It was 
much as if his form had appeared in our midst, sur- 
rounded by all its sacred and inspiring memories, and 
passing on had entered into the heavenly- rest, in the 
hope of which he lived and worked. The very walls 
seemed to re-echo the voice with which he won the 
hearts of his people. The remembrance of his earnest, 
kindly interest in each member of his flock came back 
to intensify his former instruction and pleading. * * 
The South Church mourns with you in the sudden and 
heavy sorrow. To many of us it comes as a direct, per- 
sonal bereavement. To us all it is the loss of one 
whose name is graven on the South Church walls, 
whose faithful ministry continues a rich heritage and 
strong inspiration in the church's life. * * * His 
life and work, his wishes for this church and people, 
will be devoutly and diligently cherished." 

" It was his life here," wrote Mr. George R. Chap- 
man, " to be doing his Lord's will, and the scene only 
of his work has changed. The work will be nothing 
new to him. * * The recognition of the great part 
of his old Salem church — how dear it must be to them 
and to him to again serve together their common Mas- 
ter and Lord !" 

" None have better reason than we," wrote another 
of his warm personal friends in the Salem church, Mr. 
Joseph Hardy Towne, "to know Dr. Dwinell's worth,. 



104 ISRAEL KDSON DWINKLL. 

and the value of his acquaintance and friendship, and 
we mourn his loss as that of a long-tried and very dear 
friend— none nearer or dearer outside of our family cir- 
cle. To be in his company was always a delight. * * 
I am gratified, and no doubt you will be, to find that 
the memory of Dr. Dwinell is held in such loving re- 
membrance by a people to whom he ministered so many 
years ago, and that his faithful pastorate is still fresh 
in the minds of so many of the people. We can hope, 
as Mr. Brodie expressed it in his prayer, that such 
memories may serve as an inspiration to us in the fut- 
ure." 

Another recalls his ministrations to the sorrowful : 
" When I remember what sweet and holy words of 
comfort he spoke to me in hours of affliction, and to 
many another mourner, I wish it were in my power to 
help bear your burden of sorrow. I can only say that 
we loved him, and that we love you, and we weep 
with you. ' ' 

These memories of Dr. Dwinell's pastorate, called 
out by his death twenty-seven years after that pastor- 
ate had closed, are introduced at this place as giving 
emphasis to the deep impression he made upon the peo- 
ple during the fourteen years he lived and labored in 
Salem. 

They were years given to the study of the Word of 
God, and to communion with the Spirit of God. The}' 
were years of intellectual and spiritual growth. But 
much as he enjoyed stud}' , he enjoyed work more ; or 
perhaps it were better to say, study was ever a part of 
his work — it was never apart from his work. All his 
intellectual pursuits kept ever the great aim of his life 
in view ; that aim was service. Hence he added to 
close study and the careful writing of discourses, free 



CLOSE OF SALEM PASTORATE. 105 

intercourse with the people. Take, for example, the 
summary for 1856 recorded in his Journal, and it ap- 
pears that his calls averaged more than two a day for 
a year in which he had preached seventy times. 

" During the year I have made 678 calls, of which 
320 were pastoral visits to families, and 278 to individ- 
uals who were sick or anxious, etc., and in 80 cases 
the persons on whom I called were not at home." 

' ' A public man's success ? ' ' asks Robertson. ' ' That 
which can be measured b}~ feast days and the number 
of journals which espouse his cause ? Deeper, deeper 
far must he work who works for Eternity. In the eye 
of that, nothing stands but gold — real work — all else 
perishes." 

Dr. Dwinell rests from his labors, but his work in 
Salem abides. 




Congregational Church, Sacramento, Cala, 



CHAPTER XII. 

NEW SCENES. 

Sacramento, in 1863, was a city similar to Salem in 
amount of population, but in all other respects few 
places could be more dissimilar. Each contained not 
far from twenty thousand inhabitants ; but in Salem 
the mass was fused, while in Sacramento the elements 
were difficult if not incapable of fusion. The Chinese 
with their peculiar customs, their pagan rites, their 
harsh speech and meagre fare, were described by Dr. 
Dwinell as ' ' living in sight of the rest of the popula- 
tion, but yet separated from them by a deep gulf. " 
" The Jew," he adds, " is here, and is true to his tra- 
ditional habits and character." Representatives of 
nearly all nations were there, but few of them looked 
upon Sacramento or even California as their perma- 
nent home. " Society," wrote Dr. Dwinell, "in the 
strict sense of the term, is hardly formed in the State. 
The people are held together under social forms and 
usages, more by external bands than by internal. 
They know little about one another generally, even 
their neighbors, and take little interest in them, pro- 
vided they are not troubled by them. * * * There 
is indifference to public sentiment, because public sen- 
timent does not exist. * * * Yet, in any case of 
sickness or suffering, any call of humanity, no persons 
have warmer hearts or more responsive hands than 
these apparently cool and indifferent Californians. 



108 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. 

The appearance of indifference belongs to the structure 
and history of society, not to the nature of the people, 
as I have occasion to know very well." 

Into such a community, the beginnings of which 
were but fourteen years before his arrival, Dr. Dwinell 
came from one of the most staid cities of New England. 

He was forty-two years of age, cultured, conserva- 
tive, with lofty ideals, and frail in health. Could he 
take root in such California soil as we find analyzed by 
him above ? Others, his companions in Christian ser- 
vice, had for the most part come to California direct 
from their respective seminaries, and knew only the 
unique conditions and flexible methods of Christian 
work on the Pacific Coast. They had "grown up 
with the country " : but this New England pastor 
quickly found his place among them, and received 
from them a welcome so cordial that he soon felt that 
he had a part in the work so grandly begun b} T the 
Christian pioneers of California. 

He was not long finding out that he had entered 
upon a field of vast importance. Those to whom he 
ministered recognized in their new pastor a man fitted 
in mind and heart to be their spiritual guide. The 
community felt the uplift of his public spirit, and not 
only the denominational life, but also the interdenom- 
inational activity of the whole state was quickened by 
his wise counsels and generous sympathies. He had 
made no mistake in coming to the Pacific Coast. He 
took root in California soil, and for twenty-seven years, 
like the Sequoia gigantea, stood erect, stalwart, benef- 
icent, thoroughly Californian . 

The First Church of Christ ( Congregational ) was 
the second of that denomination to be organized in Cal- 
ifornia. In the year 1849 Rev. Joseph A. Benton, ar- 



NEW SCENES. 109 

riving in the State, proceeded to Sacramento, then a 
a village of tents, preached to congregations gathered 
under a tree, and aided by some brethren organized a 
church. This church, in 1863, had increased in mem- 
bership to about eighty, owned a substantial and com- 
modious brick house of worship, and held a command- 
ing and influential position in the capital city. 

Dr. Dwinell, upon assuming the pastorate, at once at- 
tracted the attention and commanded the respect of all 
in the community. To speak particularly of his pas- 
toral work in Sacramento would be to repeat much that 
has been said of his work in Salem. The same thorough- 
ness of preparation for the pulpit, the same active sym- 
pathy with the people, the same consecration of strength 
and time to the work, marked this pastorate as that in 
Massachusetts. 

His own words to his people after ten years of ser- 
vice reveal his spirit and methods, and make us ac- 
quainted with partial results. 

' ' In strictly ministerial work among my own people 
I have found my highest pleasure, and to this I have 
given my best thoughts and energy and love. I have 
regarded preaching as having the first claims, after per- 
sonal fidelity to Christ, and attention to the sick and sor- 
rowing, and the burial of the dead. I have preached 
nearly nine hundred times on the Sabbath, in one form 
or another, mostly written sermons — sometimes extem- 
poraneously, and sometimes in familiar addresses on 
missionary subjects or to the children. I have tried to 
preach Christ and to preach duty, to preach the Bible, 
and to bring you to the Bible. I have aimed to show 
you to yourselves, and to show Christianity to you, so 
that you will see what fits your soul, all its chambers 
and recesses, as a key the wards of a combination lock, 



IIO ISRAKlv KDSON DWINEIX. 

and so welcome it. And then I have carried the Gos- 
pel out in its practical applications in your homes, bus- 
iness, pleasures, personal habits, and many of the great 
social problems of the day. * * * In all my preach- 
ing I have never forgotten my respect for the Master, 
nor my respect for you, nor for myself, and come down 
from a high moral purpose to the shifts and tricks nec- 
essary for amusing and making you laugh. If I cannot 
respect a people enough to believe that they wish me 
to address them on a basis of manhood, and for their 
good and elevation, rather than come down and tickle 
them as in a show, I have no call to preach to them. 
You will bear me witness that I have shown you honor 
in this respect. We have gone up into the house of 
God together, and not into a circus or theater. * * 

" It has been an incidental part of my work, and a 
strong desire, to develop the charities of the church and 
congregation. The contributions have been systema- 
tized, the missionary and Sabbath School concerts estab- 
lished, and appeals are regularly made for contributions 
to benevolent objects — from principle, from love to 
brother man — with moderate response. For giving to 
objects making a direct appeal to humanity or affec- 
tion, objects at hand, I have found this people most 
hearty and generous ; but for giving to causes far off, 
of which they have no personal knowledge, slow and 
cautious." 

After reviewing some of the leading events of the 
decade — the first half of his pastorate — including the ac- 
cession of one hundred and forty-five persons to the 
church, of whom seventy-three were received upon con- 
fession of faith, he continues : " I am aware that a 
more brilliant showing of outward results might have 
been made if my method of leading had been different, 



NEW SCENES. Ill 

if it had been more positive and commanding, if I had 
put in my personal will as the organizing principle of 
the Church and Society. But I have sought to act on 
an entirely different principle ; to help you to do the 
governing, to bring you up to spiritual enterprises and 
measures by your own choice, and to reach results by 
a process that at the same time enlarges and ripens 
character and makes better men and women. We are 
on a journey to God, not to the enlargement of ecclesi- 
astical ramparts and the increase of church furniture, 
and I prefer a method that best developes character 
and spiritual strength, though to gain it a pastor may 
seem to lose himself among his people." 

In 1875 Rev. B. P. Hammond held a series of union 
meetings in Sacramento, in which Dr. Dwinell and the 
other pastors co-operated most heartily, and from which 
most beneficent results followed. In Feb., 1888, four 
years after Dr. Dwinell had removed to Oakland, Mr. 
Hammond revisited Sacramento on the same Evange- 
listic mission. As showing the heart of the man who 
went in and out among that people for twenty years, 
the following letter is given a place in this memorial : 

" Pacific Theological Seminary, 
" Oakland, Feb. 13, 1888. 
"Rev. B. P. Hammond. Dear Brother: — You 
can hardly imagine the pleasure it gives me to know 
that you are again in Sacramento. I remember what 
blessing attended your labors when there before, and 
my heart still yearns over that people. I put twenty 
years — the best of my life, my thought and strength 
and activity — into that field, and I cannot but feel 
deeply, acutely for it. There are scores and hundreds 
of souls there that I have agonized over to help them 



112 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. 

into the Kingdom, and they are still outside. For 
some of them I have prayed daily for more than twenty 
years, and my prayers are still unanswered. No won- 
der my heart leaps into my mouth when I think of you 
there, and of the churches and pastors uniting, and 
once more throwing the warm, broad appeals of the 
Gospel through that entire community. * * * I 
am constantly praying for you and your co-laborers, 
and the work. May the Lord bless you and the dear 
old church, and all the churches ; and may the whole 
city, baptized with fire, and flood, and politics, now be 
baptized with the Holy Ghost. 

" Fraternally yours, 

" I. E. Dwinell." 

In his review of his pastorate on the last Sunday be- 
fore his ministry ended, he declares : — "I have loved 
my work. I have loved the place. I have loved 
you. I have had a people worthy of being loved, and 
that one could not help but love. I have watched your 
personal histories, and kept my thoughts on your spir- 
itual heart-beats, as a mother watches the unfolding of 
the character of her child, that she may know how to 
care for it and mold it. * * * And I have been 
aware of the return of this love. I have somehow felt 
your personal regard for me, as a pure atmosphere 
which one has no need to hear or perceive blowing to 
feel its stimulating and tonic effects. I have had y our 
confidence. I have shared 3^our generosity. When 
sick, I have been kindly relieved of dut3 T . You have 
patiently borne the inconvenience and awaited my re- 
cover}^. I have never asked a favor or indulgence you 
have not cheerfully granted. I do not believe a pas- 
tor ever had a more generous-minded people toward 
himself personally, than you have been to me." 



NEW SCENES. 113 

Such was this Sacramento pastorate in its spirit and 
mutual relations between pastor and people. Through 
it " souls were regenerated, character beautified, homes 
blessed, society leavened." Of its details he spoke 
to his congregation at the farewell services : "I have 
met you in the sanctuary nearly seventeen hundred 
times on the Sabbath, and tried to take you away from 
absorption in mere secular interests, into the pres- 
ence of God. * * * I have met you in private, 
from house to house, and in the happenings of the 
week, and spoken with you on the same supreme sub- 
ject, heart touching heart. With two hundred and 
eighty-three of your number — one hundred and ten 
adults and one hundred and seventy-three children — I 
have gone with you upon the mount of consecration, 
and set them apart in baptism, on their own solemn 
faith or that of their parents, to the service of the 
Father, Son and Holy Ghost. I have joined with you 
in the sublime act when three hundred and sixty-one 
of you united with the church, covenanting with God 
and with his people for the service of Christ. Of these 
two hundred and fifty-one still remain on the church 
roll, and these, with the fifteen still remaining of the 
eighty-three on the roll when I came here, make two 
hundred and sixty-six in all now on our list ; while only 
one of the original members of the church in 1849, A. 
C. Sweetser, remains. 

' ' I have been with you also on memorable occasions 
of domestic joy. If I should call together the persons 
I have married during these twenty years, that I might 
preach to them on the duties of married life, and they 
should all come, there would be enough white- veiled 
brides and kid-gloved grooms to fill this church, and 
have an overflow meeting that would nearly fill the 



114 ISRAEL BDSON DWINELL. 

lecture-room, for there would be one thousand and sixty 
persons present. 

' ' I have gone to you in times of trouble also, when sor- 
row has invaded your homes, and you felt you needed all 
the kindly sympathy and help you could get, and were 
glad to be borne up into the presence of God for com- 
fort. If all sounds should now be hushed, and the 
grave should give up its dead, at whose burial I have 
officiated, and you should make room for them, and re- 
tire and look on from afar, and see them file silently in 
* * * and fill this line of pews and that, every seat 
in the body of this church would be occupied with the 
six hundred and fifty-eight dear ones who have been 
taken from you, over whom we have bowed tenderfy 
and sadly together in the pitying presence of the Sa- 
vior, on the brink of the other world ourselves, before 
whose fluttering curtains we stood." 

A beautiful tribute to this pastorate was offered by 
the great congregation assembled to listen to the fare- 
well sermon. After its deliver 3^ Rev. H. H. Rice, pas- 
tor of the Presbyterian Church, spoke feelingly of the 
work of the retiring pastor, introducing the resolutions 
that follow. Rev. Mr. McKelvie, pastor of the Seventh 
St. M. E. Church, spoke on the subject of the resolu- 
tions, saying that Dr. Dwinell had not been pastor 
simply of the Congregational Church, but belonged to 
the whole people. At the conclusion of his remarks 
the resolutions were adopted b)~ a rising vote of the en- 
tire audience : 

" Whereas, it has seemed best to our friend and 
brother, Rev. Israel H. Dwinell, D.D., to close his labors 
as pastor in Sacramento, after a service of twenty 
years ; therefore be it 

* ' Resolved, by the Christian people of this commu- 
nity, as represented in this union meeting, 



NEW SCENES. 115 

1 ' First — That the work of Dr. D winell has been a great 
blessing, not only to the church which he has served 
with such unremitting faithfulness, but also to the whole 
city and the State of California. 

' ' Second — That we shall cherish with gratitude the 
memory of his genial character, his Christian example, 
his intellectual power, his public counsels, and in gen- 
eral his wide-spread influence for good as a fellow cit- 
izen and as a minister of the Gospel of Christ. 

' ' Third — That we part from him with the deepest 
sorrow and regret, which we believe to be shared alike 
by the people of all churches, all departments of busi- 
ness, and all stations in life. 

" Fourth — That we tender to him and his beloved 
wife our heartfelt prayers for the richest blessings to 
attend them, wherever God in his providence may or- 
der their lot, and we send beforehand our congratula- 
tions to the community where they may select their 
home. 

' ' Fifth — That this occasion solemnly calls upon us, 
without respect to denominational lines, to rededicate 
ourselves to the service of our Lord Jesus Christ in a 
holy life, for the upbuilding of his heavenly kingdom. ' ' 

In the earlier years of this pastorate there were few 
gray heads in the congregation . The young and mid- 
dle aged filled the pews, as they also filled the import- 
ant business positions in the city. It was an active, 
restless community — some surging like the sea, coming 
and going and returning again, now to San Francisco, 
now to a newly discovered mine, now to a daring bus- 
iness venture ; others passing through the city as if 
borne on the current of the river, lingering for a little 
like a fruitful branch held back by the eddy, to sweep 
onward and beyond sight at length toward bay and 
ocean. 



Il6 ISRAEL KDSON DWINELL. 

He who would reach and bless this moving throng 
must not be unmindful of "the stranger within the 
gate." Dr. Dwinell was quick to discover and "not 
forgetful to entertain strangers. " He realized that his 
hearer of today might be amid other scenes to-morrow 
— in mine or on ranch, or speeding along across an 
ocean or a continent, for a time beyond the range of 
Christian ordinances. 

Many of these transient members of his congrega- 
tion could testify to the kindly, helpful interest of this 
pastor in their spiritual and material prosperity. 

One of the number who, since that time, has made a 
distinguished record for himself by investigating and 
revealing the condition of Russian exiles in Siberia, 
spent several months in Sacramento in the 3^ear 1865. 
He was then, in early manhood, en route to Siberia, 
with a party about to survey a route for an overland 
telegraph northward from San Francisco, along the 
Pacific Coast, thence via Behring Strait across Siberia. 
In Dr. Dwinell, George Kennan found a congenial 
friend, whose Christian fellowship he sought ; and 
desiring publicly to confess his Christian faith, before 
proceeding on his long and perilous journey, he was 
received into the membership of the Congregational 
Church in Sacramento by the pastor. 

Two years later, while on board the barque Onward, 
at sea off Ghijiga Gulf, he wrote to Dr. Dwinell, and 
brief extracts will be sufficient to show his apprecia- 
tion of the interest shown in him by the pastor : 

" It may be by this time that you have nearly, if 
not quite, forgotten the young man who united with 
your church in the spring of 1865, just previous to his 
departure with the first of the W. U. Telegraph Com- 
pany's exploring parties for Northeastern Siberia. 



NEW SCENES. 117 

Our short acquaintance may not have made upon your 
mind so deep an impression as your kindness and cor- 
dial sympathy did upon mine, but still I hope that the 
peculiar circumstances under which I became known 
to 3^ou and eventually united with your church have 
not suffered you to entirely forget me. 

"I intended long before this to have written you, 
but my life in Siberia has been spent in almost constant 
travel on dog sledges over the vast steppes which lie 
in the interior, and has afforded me few opportunities 
and fewer facilities for communication with friends, or 
indeed with any portion of the civilized world. 

"I would not have you infer, however, from my 
long silence that I have forgotten you, or that I cease 
to remember with emotions of liveliest gratitude the 
help, sympathy and friendship which cheered and en- 
couraged me in the right path, when I was " a stranger 
in a strange land." Many times while sitting by the 
lonely camp-fire, watching out the long hours of an 
Arctic night on some desolate steppe, I have thought 
of the friends in Sacramento, and cherished the hope 
that I might in God's time see them again. 

******** 

" I cannot express to you, my dear pastor, how hard 
it is to live as a Christian ought to live in this country 
where there are neither churches, Sabbath Schools, 
Christian society, nor any helps to a Christian life, 
which the poorest in America enjoys. * * * We 
may never meet again on earth, but I shall always re- 
member 3^ou with gratitude, and by God's help and 
mercy I hope to meet you sometime in another world." 

In reply to a letter from Dr. Dwinell, Mr. Kennan, 
a year later from his home in Ohio, refers to ' ' the cor- 
diality and hearty kindness " of his Sacramento friends. 



Il8 ISRAEL BDSON DWINEIX. 

Testimony like this is not only encouraging to a 
faithful pastor, but is a word in season to any Chris- 
tian worker who may read these pages, and whose 
bread cast upon the waters he has not yet found. 
There are men scattered up and down the earth to 
whom a word in season has been spoken, which led to 
their conversion, or fortified their faith, or comforted 
them in their sorrows. From them may come no 
written testimony, yet they hold in grateful memory 
the pastor, teacher, friend, whose life touched theirs 
and blessed it. Too often the testimony, if given, is 
delayed till the ear of him who blessed is deaf, and the 
heart that throbbed with Christian sympathy has ceased 
to beat. 

Many such expressions of appreciation came to Dr. 
Dwinell through all the years of his ministry, and when 
the tidings of his death reached distant and former par- 
ishioners their grateful words of appreciation came to 
the stricken home as the doves come flying to the 
place where they have been fed, when the bell in the 
tower of St. Mark tolls two. 

"My dear former Pastor, how I loved him. His 
consistent life, lovely spirit, sympathizing heart, we 
shall miss so much. " 

' ' Though he was so far away, I still looked upon 
him as my dear pastor. ' ' 

" He was connected with so many events in our 
lives, sad and joyous, and to each gave such a sacred- 
ness, that we feel that a beautiful presence has passed 
from our lives." 

( ' I shall never forget his kindness and sympathy — 
how like a dear, loving brother he was to me." 

" We shall never forget his lessons of love and sym- 
pathy, which we have heard him express so many 



NEW SCENES. 119 

times. Surely a great and good man has fallen, but 
his works do follow him. " 

1 ' I cannot tell you how much I have missed him all 
these years of his absence. His counsel still remains 
with me, and always will as long as I live." 

" We loved him — learned on his sweet life to lean, 
Yet dare not mourn that such a life should cease 
When the Great Reaper takes His ripened grain." 

" C. has always loved and revered Dr. Dwinell as 
his ideal of perfect manhood, of greatness, of excel- 
lence. ' ' 

" He walked very near to his dear Savior." 
" We all know how sweetly and reverently he 
always listened to know what the Lord would have 
him do. I don't believe he ever willfully disobeyed 
God." 



CHAPTER XIII. 

A CHRISTIAN CITIZEN. 

California's moral crust is of unequal thickness. 
Seismic disturbances in public sentiment or in legisla- 
tion are not uncommon. The builders of the com- 
monwealth have not all realized the insecurity of a 
State from whose structure have been omitted the eter- 
nal principles of right. 

Some sessions of the Legislature at Sacramento have 
been a seismograph registering the shocks and undu- 
latory motions that threatened the honor of the State, 
and caused to lay prostrate the polished stones of 
Christian principle. 

At such times it was of inestimable value to the 
State to have in the leading pulpit of the Capital city 
men like Dr. Dwinell, and his predecessor Dr. Benton, 
who as watchmen upon the towers of Zion were quick 
to feel the shock, faithful to warn legislators and their 
constituents, and wise to plan for rebuilding the shaken 
walls of civic virtue. 

When in 1868 an effort was made in the Legislature 
to repeal the Sabbath laws of the State, Dr. Dwinell, 
from his pulpit in Sacramento, and through the secular 
and religious press showed that society, as well as indi- 
vidual Christians, has an interest in the continuance 
of Sunday laws. " It is clear,"' he says, " if the State 
adopts a policy which tends to break up the Christian 
Sabbath it breaks up the casket which holds its jewel. " 
9 



122 ISRAEL KDSON DWINELL. 

At another time he wrote in The Pacific : ' ' We must 
be American or nothing. And now is the time to 
speak out. Let every county, town and precinct speak 
out. Let every Christian citizen and patriot speak 
out. Let one overwhelming voice from all parts of the 
State say to the Legislature, now in session : ' Make 
no war upon the American Sabbath. Let this vital, 
fundamental, time-honored, inherited, American insti- 
tution stand. Do not attempt its overthrow, to erect 
in its place an illusive, destructive, cosmopolitan spec- 
tre.' " 

The effort made in the Legislature against the Sab- 
bath failed at that time, but a few years later was re- 
newed and succeeded. 

In the summer of 1882, and again during the fol- 
lowing winter and spring, when the attack upon the 
American Sabbath was renewed in the Legislature, 
Dr. Dwinell preached and wrote in defense of the day. 
Two sermons of this period are of special interest and 
power. Both were delivered in Sacramento; the first 
while the repeal of the Sunday law was still pending 
in the Legislature. Its title was " The Repeal of the 
Law a blow at Public Morals. " The second sermon, 
delivered after the repeal had been accomplished, had 
for its title, "California Pulling Down the Sabbath 
Sign. What shall we do about it ? " 

Both of these sermons were published in The Pacific. 
The former was published also in the Sacramento Bee. 

The daily press of Sacramento often requested for 
publication those sermons of Dr. Dwinell's which 
treated of subjects especially in the mind of the public 
at the time. This gave the preacher an audience that 
reached out into the whole city, into many parts of 
the State, and into the halls of legislation. 



A CHRISTIAN CITIZEN. 1 23 

Several of these discourses were delivered in 1878, 
when the oratory of the ' ' Sand-lot ' ' in San Francisco 
was arousing the spirit of discontent among some 
classes of citizens. The topics were : — " Incipient 
Communism — a Portent of the Times." "Commun- 
ism Ripe — Fulfillment of the Portent of the Times." 
' ' The Conflict between Capital and Labor, and how to 
Remove it.' ' In referring to the first of these the editor 
of the Sacramento Record-Union called the effort one 
of Dr. Dwinell's best. 

It was thoughtful, incisive, bold, based on histori- 
cal events, and its conclusions were drawn with logical 
and irresistible force. He pointed out the symptoms 
which betoken a communistic spirit in California and 
other States. He sketched the chief elements of the 
Commune, diagnosed the situation, and clearly showed 
the cause and the tendency of the present attempt to 
array classes against each other ; to crush out individ- 
uality ; to override divine personal rights ; to belittle 
Christianity; to set up the practice of State interference 
with private rights at the demand of the selfish inter- 
ests of a majority ; to establish the unsound doctrine 
that the State is the only safe capitalist, and that it 
may regulate the hours and price of labor, and adjust 
the rewards and relations of capital and labor. These 
were but a few of the points touched upon, but indi- 
cate in part the scope and character of the sermon. 

The conclusion of this discourse is : "I have confi- 
dence in the American people generally, and in Cali- 
fornians — in their virtue, intelligence, good sense, and 
self-recovering power — that though they may blunder 
a little, and experiment a little, just try the taste of 
the rind of Communism, they will find it so crude and 
bitter, and entirely un-American and foreign to all 



124 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. 

their relish, that they will speedily hurl it from them, 
and have nothing more to do with it. We are not go- 
ing to cast off all our political traditions and approved 
methods, and sacred regard for rights and duties, and 
love of personal liberty, and imprison ourselves in the 
absolutism of a multitude. Never, while Bunker Hill 
remains, and the memory of Washington survives, and 
the blood of the Revolutionary fathers flows in our 
veins, and the thrill of freedom is remembered in our 
own souls ! Never, while the church and the school- 
house stand ! " 

In his sermon on the conflict between capital and 
labor he takes this hopeful view of the solution of the 
problem : " There is a self-adjusting power in the eco- 
nomic system under Christian civilization. All its 
laws, all its forces of adaptation and self-recover}', are 
not annihilated. Chaos is not coming, because a crisis 
has come and the necessity of a re-adjustment of pro- 
ductive forces. The real wants of the county, to be 
supplied by the co-operation of capital and labor, are as 
many as they ever were in time of peace, and are in- 
creasing every year. There is room for all the coun- 
try's capital and all the country's labor. When the 
two have had time to sort themselves out of the debris, 
adapt themselves to the new relations, make sure of 
the old enterprises and find out the new r ones demanded 
by the real wants of business, they will again be on 
relatively good terms with each other, and both rela- 
tively content. What is immediately wanted is a little 
patient waiting, forbearance, good-will and hopeful- 
ness on both sides, till the self-adjusting and self- 
recovering powers of the economic world have had 
an opportunity to act. ' ' 

Other economic questions were treated by him in 



A CHRISTIAN CITIZEN. 1 25 

the pulpit and through his pen. When, after pro- 
longed agitation, a new Constitution had been adopted 
by the people of California, and niany were feeling 
troubled by the change, Dr. Dwinell had a message for 
his people, and through the columns of the Record- 
Union to the general public, on "The Duty and Privi- 
lege of Calif or nians . ' ' He urged upon the leaders of 
public thought, upon political chiefs, legislators, and 
the sovereign people, the duty of conserving and per- 
petuating the vitalities cf the commonwealth, and of 
canying the State over to the new order without crip- 
pling it. ' ' We should shun the method of catastro- 
phes and breaks. We should not manipulate the deli- 
cate interests of business and finance with earthquakes. 
We should not form radical changes in jurisprudence and 
local government with thunder and lightning. * * 
We must be faithful to the new Constitution, accord- 
ing to its presumptive meaning, till it is wisely modi- 
fied ; but we must be faithful to the higher, diviner, 
older Constitution under it as well, and so move gently, 
continuous^, wisely, for this is the presumptive mean- 
ing of both. ' ' 

As a representative Christian citizen of California, 
his opinion was sought by several religious journals 
east of the Rocky Mountains. His view of what has 
often been on the Pacific Coast a burning question was 
clearly expressed as ear^ as 1879, in an article from 
his pen, appearing in The Congregationalism "There 
are few persons who have studied the Chinese question 
in California, as a far-reaching social problem, who 
would like to have the number of Chinese increase in 
California. All of our better people believe in treating 
them well, doing them good, and Christianizing them 
as far as possible, and in maintaining all treaty stipu- 



126 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. 

lations with the Chinese government, till the treaty 
can be wisely and honorably modified. They feel 
there is no need of hot haste in checking the immigra- 
tion, for any reason of social order, polit.cal economy, 
or Christian statesmanship. It would doubtless occa- 
sion more distress to the American population in Cali- 
fornia to remove the Chinese summarily, even if that 
could be done without injury to them and with their 
good-will, before other good laborers c )uld be found to 
take their places in the families and elsewhere, than 
their presence here has caused ever since their arrival. 
In fact, if there were no fear that there might be a 
great increase of their number, I imagine the majority 
of the people in the State would regard their presence 
with indifference. But when we remember that most 
of them come from a small district about Hong Kong, 
that the gates of China have never yet been practi- 
cally open for the egress of her oppressed and often - 
famished millions, and that here their condition, civil 
and material, is so much improved, it seems the part 
of wise statesmanship to restrict the incongruous occu- 
pation before its proportions put it beyond control. " 

Bight 3^ears later he gives to The Congregationalist 
what he regarded as the sober Christian view in Cali- 
fornia on the Chinese question. Restriction, rather 
than exclusion, on the one hand, or unlimited immi- 
gration on the other, continued to be his position. 
"It is net a desirable immigration to encourage." 
"These views," he says, in conclusion, " are those of 
the class making most sacrifice and doing most to 
Christianize the Chinese and do them good. " 

The work of the American Missionary Association, 
as conducted among the Chinese, through its auxili- 
ary, the California Chinese Mission, greatly interested 



A CHRISTIAN CITIZEN. 1 27 

Dr. Dwinell. Christian schools, in their behalf, and 
especially a Mission School in Sacramento, found in 
him a friend and advocate. His personal presence and 
words of encouragement, as well as regular Sunday 
evening instruction of Chinese by members of his fam- 
ily, are evidence of his faith in the power of the Gospel 
over the Chinaman in America. In speaking of the 
beginning of this work, and some of the happy results 
that had come under his personal observation, he said : 
" The wedge is entering the Chinese Empire." 

During his long pastorate in Sacramento no worthy 
cause failed to find in him a ready advocate. When 
the city's health was imperilled b}^ bad sewerage, he 
followed up the suggestion of a daily paper, and called 
a meeting of citizens " interested in the adoption of 
some effective and economical system of sewerage, to 
meet in the Court House to consider the subject. " 

Representative citizens assembled, and a full discus- 
sion was had of various schemes, Dr. Dwinell showing 
in his address that he was as familiar with the princi- 
ples of city sanitation as with systems of theology. 
When a library a sociation in San Francisco obtained 
a special dispensation from the Legislature to conduct 
a lottery under the guise of a grand gift concert, pro- 
ducing a general infection throughout the State, Dr. 
Dwinell, from his pulpit and in the public press, 
declared against mixed ethics. "It is not pleasant, 
friends, fellow citizens," he said, " to criticise popular 
public movements ; but a minister must look sharply 
after the moral as well as the spiritual driftings of the 
communit3 T , and evermore try to keep before his hearers 
the higher light and the better wa}^. He lives to 
make men and society better ; to help them in their 
Godward relations. And if there is anything which 



128 ISRAEL EDSON BWINELL. 

the industry, morality and religion of Californians 
needs, it is to have their desire for sudden and large, 
and perhaps mysterious, gains sobered down. From 
the settlement of the State, this has been our fatal 
fever. Our mines, our speculations, our experimental 
husbandry, our El Dorado mirages of various sorts, 
have burned out the heart and the brain of multitudes. 
Only recently the pulse has begun to beat more natu- 
rally, and feverish adventure to give place to more 
sober industry. Now this scheme * * * causes 
a relapse throughout the State, and sets the blood on 
fire again. * * * It will be a good day for Cali- 
fornia when her citizens can afford to wait to be rich 
through honorable industry . This will promote wealth, 
health, sanity, morality and religion." 

Such a sermon and the occasion for it suggest the 
marked contrast between the pastorates in Salem and 
in Sacramento, between the bewitched communities of 
the Seventeenth and the Nineteenth Centuries. It is 
not every man who could rank among the foremost 
citizens of two communities so unlike. It is not every 
pastor who could devote his early manhood to the 
quiet tasks of a venerable parish, and his later man- 
hood to intricate and pressing labors that belong with- 
out as well as within a youthful parish in a restless 
State. But the man from Salem was the right man 
for Sacramento, for California. He proved himself a 
sociologist as well as a theologian. Finding, in 1873, 
that the State Prison was fast filling with youthful 
offenders, he called public attention to the need of a 
Reform School. In 1874 he drew up a Reform School 
bill, containing twenty- three sections, procured its 
introduction into the Legislature, and used his pen in 
advocacy of the measure. 



A CHRISTIAN CITIZEN. 1 29 

When speculative excitement was running high in 
1875, and multitudes were investing in stock of the 
" bonanza " mines, a clear voice, giving forth no un- 
certain sound, was heard from the Congregational pul- 
pit of Sacramento. " Be sure there is nothing better 
in all the secular realm than a life of industry, — good, 
solid industry, and a heroic practice of the industrial 
virtues. A better manhood is built up under them 
than under an}' other kind of secular training. Society 
flourishes better on this basis, and you go up from it 
more naturally and successfully to all the grand cul- 
ture, tastes, accomplishments and services which adorn 
earth or fit for heaven. " 

Whatever interested Sacramento, interested Dr. 
Dwinell. He loved the city. His sympathies were 
with faithful Christian workers of whatever name. 
With ail good citizens he co-operated for the building 
up of institutions, for the cultivation of intellectual 
life, for the repression of crime, for the promotion of 
public education. He took an active part in the organ- 
ization of the Sacramento Protestant Orphan Asylum, 
Mrs. Dwinell being for several years President of the 
Board of Lad}' Managers. 

He led in the organization of the Sacramento Liter- 
ary Institute, designed to promote literary culture by 
means of courses of lectures. Of the Agassiz Institute, 
a literary society called into existence as a result of a 
visit of Louis Agassiz to Sacramento, Dr. Dwinell 
was an active and interested member. 

"Was there a noted visitor to be introduced? It 
was most generally Dr. Dwinell who stood beside him 
upon the platform, and in a few well-chosen and 
scholarly words made the public acquainted with the 
person and his history. Was there a crisis in the Na- 



130 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. 

tion's history, such as that of the death of President 
Garfield ? It was Dr. Dwinell who was called upon to 
lift the people out of their despondency, and point out 
to them how the eternal principles of justice and of 
righteousness would secure vindication, notwithstand- 
ing what single hand might fail and what new pilot be 
called to the helm of State. Was it a moment of 
peculiar civil agitation, when an inoffensive citizen 
had been murdered by a crazed assassin ? It was again 
Dr. Dwine 1 who was called upon to address the 
throng which gathered at the obsequies, and to coun- 
sel forbearance, and a firm reliance upon the enginery 
of the law." — Rev. C. P. Massey, Jr., in Memorial 
Sermon. 

He took great satisfaction in meeting weekly with 
his brethren of all denominations in the city. Here 
the bond of sympathy between the churches was 
strengthened. Here each pastor learned what the 
others were doing, and together they planned for the 
common good, and presented a united front to all forms 
of organized evil. 

To write further of this Sacramento pastorate would 
be a delightful occupation, but enough has been said 
to reveal its spirit, to exhibit its strength, and to show 
its far-reaching influence. 

He prepared and preached able sermons ; he at- 
tended most minutely to the social and distinctively 
pastoral duties of his position, especially devoting him- 
self to the sick and afflicted in his parish ; and yet, as 
we have seen, met the multitudinous claims of Chris- 
tianity and civilization that engaged his attention be- 
yond the limits of his own city. His sermons which 
were published in the daily papers of Sacramento 
would fill a volume. His sermons and communications 



A CHRISTIAN CITIZEN. 131 

that appeared in The Pacific of San Francisco would 
fill several volumes. He was well known to readers 
of religious papers in the Eastern States, and his arti- 
cles in the religious Quarterlies heretofore referred to 
appeared not infrequent!}*, up to the time of his death. 
It is a pastorate especially marked and beneficent; 
a work to thank God for, especially when it is remem- 
bered that at its beginning his life hung in the bal- 
ance, and throughout the score of years he was never 
physically robust. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

AN INSTITUTION-BUILDER. 

In his bo} T hood, Dr. Dwinell, as we have seen, hun- 
gered for a liberal education, and surmounted obstacles 
great and numerous, in order that he might thoroughly 
equip his mind with the profoundest knowledge and 
broadest culture attainable. Through all after years 
he recognized his indebtedness to the institutions in 
which he had been educated. 

There was nothing, however, in his environment at 
Salem to call out his energies in the direction of help- 
ing plant and maintain institutions of learning. He 
was in the midst of schools, for the most part centers 
of Christian culture, accessible to all classes of young 
people ; schools that had proved their right to live by 
the struggles out of which they had emerged, and by 
the noble lives they had helped to develop. In his 
own city are the Essex Institute, the Peabody Acad- 
emy of Science, and one of the State Normal Schools. 
Within the county of Essex are the famous Andover 
schools, Phillips Academy for boys, the Theological 
Semimary, and the Abbot Academy for girls. There, 
too, is Bradford Academy, — the oldest seminary for 
young women in the country, where is cherished the 
memory of Mrs. Judson and Harriet Newell with a 
tenderness akin to that of Man^ Lyon at Mt. Holyoke 
Seminary ; while Harvard University, Amherst Col- 
lege and a galaxy of lesser institutions are but a few 
miles awav. 



134 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. 

California presented a striking contrast to all this in 
1863. Famous, the world over, for its wealth, the 
State claimed no citizen of means whose heart inclined 
him to give largely to educational work. The College 
of California, the outgrowth of a union of effort among 
several denominations, chief of which were the Con- 
gregational and ( New School ) Presbyterians, had not 
yet graduated its first class. Its main feeder, the Col- 
lege School in Oakland, was conspicuous not only for 
its excellence, but also for its solitariness. 

A.s a denomination, Congregalionalists in California 
possessed but a fraction of an educational institution. 
Around this, however, they rallied with enthusiasm 
and hope, and in their weakness were ready to extend 
their system of Christian education upon the same 
union basis. 

The General Association of California in the year 
1864 gave voice to the deepening conviction that a 
Theological Seminary in the State was already a neces- 
sity. Its committee on education, of which Rev. W. 
C. Pond 'was chairman, suggested " that the time is 
coming and now is, when a Theological Seminary should 
be a matter of definite consideration with reference to 
practical action. ' ' Upon their recommendation a stand- 
ing committee was appointed to take the matter in 
hand. 

The following year a committee, consisting of Rev. 
I. K. Dwinell, Rev. Geo. Mooar and Mr. J. M. Haven 
reported in favor of making overtures to representa- 
tives of various religious bodies in California, with ref- 
erence to some system of co-operation in founding a 
Theological Seminary. They also recommended that 
inquiries be made whether it was practicable to place 
the proposed Seminary in close relationship to the Col- 



AN INSTITUTION-BUILDER. 1 35 

lege of California. These and other recommendations 
were adopted. 

In October, 1865, at Sacramento, a committee, con- 
sisting of Dr. Dwinell and Rev. W. C. Pond, reported 
a definite plan for the organization of a Congregational 
Theological Seminary Association, whose mission 
should be the establishing and maintaining a Congre- 
gational Theological Seminary in California. The 
General Association, in adopting their report, resolved 
that immediate steps be taken to establish the proposed 
Theological Seminary ; that a meeting of friends of the 
object be held the following day, and that a committee 
be appointed to present to that meeting a suitable con- 
stitution. 

On Thursday, October 11, 1866, the Seminary As- 
sociation was organized, the constitution of which was 
recommended by a committee of which Dr. Dwinell 
was chairman. 

During the year previous, Dr. Dwinell, in behalf of 
the committee, wrote to representatives of five denom- 
inations, asking whether their respective denominations 
would probably favor the establishment of a Union 
Seminary in San Francisco. In no case did he receive 
a favorable reply, nor did a proposition looking to 
some close connection of a denominational seminary 
with the College of California meet with favor on the 
part of its president. 

The question which now presented itself was : 
' ' Shall the Congregationalists assume this enterprise 
alone ? Shall we interpret the attitude of the other 
denominations as a providential indication that we 
have no further duty in the premises, or as a providen- 
tial hint of the way in which we are to discharge our 
duty?" 



136 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. 

' ' The want of a Theological Seminary in our State 
remains the same, an absolute necessity, in order to 
provide our population with a ministry sympathetic 
and homogeneous, and to meet the fact that Christi- 
anity everywhere carries with it the germs of its own 
equipment into every new country widel} r separated 
from old Christian centers, and the law that as soon as 
possible it must develop them there. If we (in Cali- 
fornia) cannot produce our ministers, we shall soon be 
incompetent to build our churches or say our prayers. 
Christianity must work out its ideas, evolve its 
germs, meet its necessities, or it droops. 

' ' Does not Providence, in leading others to decline 
co-operation, direct us to undertake this work? We 
do not suggest, under the present aspect of facts, any 
other than a Congregational Seminary. It seems then 
that, if we ought to have a thorough and adequate 
Theological Seminary, the Congregationalists are the 
party to inaugurate a direct movement. 

' ' The financial problem presents greater embarass- 
ments. We have few wealth}- church members, and 
not a large church membership all told, and many of 
them are doing already as much as their means will 
justify. It would be best to begin in a humble way, 
avoid the expense of building, and have not more than 
two professors, perhaps but one, and these professor- 
ships should be endowed. It is believed that we could 
command the means to do so much very soon, and 
that Providence would provide increased means as our 
necessities should demand. It would be reasonable 
to hope that we might have some large donations. 
We might calculate on the warmest sympatlry of all 
Congregationalists. Many benevolent persons not 
members of any church, but interested in the welfare 



AN INSTITUTION-BUILDER. 137 

of the State, would aid the enterprise ; doubtless, also, 
some members of other denominations; and we should 
receive some contributions from persons in the East- 
ern States. On general grounds, to make the bonds 
of sympathy and vitality between the institution and 
the churches as strong as possible, it would be best to 
have a collection taken up in each Congregational 
Church every year for some object in connection with 
the Seminary, and this would incidentally pour a stream 
into the treasury." 

Thus he pleads before the General Association of 
California in favor of establishing a seminary of sacred 
learning, and it is interesting to look back and see how 
literally almost all of his recommendations and predic- 
tions have been fulfilled. 

The Pacific Theological Seminary was opened for 
instruction in 1869. The twelve trustees, — of whom 
Dr. Dwinell, until the time of his death, was one, — 
decided to begin the institution in an humble way. 
To avoid the expense of building they rented rooms on 
the fourth floor of a building on Montgomery street in 
San Francisco. At first but one professor was elected, 
soon a second, and these professorships were endowed. 
Not for twenty years was a third professorship en- 
dowed. After three years the present beautiful site of 
the seminary was bought, and the institution trans- 
ferred to Oakland. From time to time large donations 
have been received. The seminary has had assurances 
of the warmest sympathy of Congregationalists, and 
large aid to the enterprise has come from men not 
members of any church, but interested in the welfare 
of the State. From Eastern States have come many 
thousands of dollars into the treasury, and annually 
contributions to the seminary have been received from 
some of the churches, and " Seminary Sunday " has a 
10 



138 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. 

recognized place in the Congregational calendar of 
California. 

Dr. Dwinell was twice called to a professorship in 
the seminary. In the autumn of 1868 the trustees 
were read} T to elect the first professor in the embryo 
institution. All eyes turned to the pastor in Sacra- 
mento, whose influence had been so weighty in the 
gradual development of plans for the founding and 
maintaining of the seminary. 

By the unanimous vote of the Board, Dr. Dwinell was 
chosen to be the first professor. This action of the 
Board was communicated to him in the following letter 
b} r a committee consisting of Rev. A. L,. Stone, D.D., 
and J. A. Benton : 

" San Francisco, Oct. 19, 1868. 
' ' Dr. I. E. Dwineee, 

"Rev. and Dear Sir : — The Trustees of the Cali- 
fornia Theological Seminary, guided by the action of 
the Seminary Association, at its recent annual meet- 
ing in the city of Oakland, have elected } r ou as first 
professor or acting president of the seminary. They 
reached this result with entire unanimity, and with 
the most earnest hope that you will accede to their 
wishes and accept the appointment. 

' ' The undersigned were chosen a committee to 
acquaint you with the action of the trustees, and solicit 
your favorable consideration of their proposals. 

' ' We are instructed to offer 3-011 a salary of three 
thousand dollars per annum, payable monthly in U. 
S. gold coin ; and to apprise you that it is the wish 
of the trustees that your first effort should be directed 
to the completion of the first endowment of $25,000. 
They believe that the successful issue of this effort 
will leave you at liberty to commence a course of the- 



AN INSTITUTION-BUILDER. 1 39 

ological instruction by the 1st of January, 1869. 
Already, since the action of the trustees, we have re- 
ceived a subscription of $1000 to our Seminary Fund. 

' ' The undersigned can urge nothing in regard to 
the strong and pressing claims of the institution whose 
practical working is thus sought to be inaugurated, 
which does not already rest with equal force upon your 
own mind. We feel fully the importance of the field 
of pastoral labor which you now occupy, and know 
the success and faithfulness of your service in that 
field. We can understand something of the sacrifice 
it will be for an attached and united people to relin- 
quish such a ministry, and the violence to your own 
heart of sundering ties so dear and sacred, of such long 
continuance. 

" But it is our judgment that the good to be accom- 
plished in laying the foundation of a system of theo- 
logical instruction in such an institution as is proposed, 
and helping to equip successive bands of spiritual 
laborers for this great harvest field of the farthest West 
now white unto the reaping, ma}' well outweigh with 
yourself and the beloved church of which you are pas- 
tor all the persuasives that hold you fast in that fellow- 
ship. 

' ' We beseech God to give you to us and to the cause 
which we plead. 

" It is the desire of the Trustees, if you accept this 
appointment, that you should enter upon the duties of 
the office to which they invite you as near to the 1st 
of November as you can bring the conclusion of 3-our 
present engagements. 

" Fraternally 3'ours, 

" In behalf of the Trustees of the Theo. Sem. of Cal. 

"A. L. Stone. 
"J. A. Benton." 



140 ISRAEL KDSON DWINEEL. 

His reply show* how he magnified the importance 
of the field to which he had been called. It does not 
show how he shrank from leaving an important pas- 
torate among a people who loved him most enthusias- 
tically, to enter an untried field and an institution as 
yet without a pupil. His letter of resignation as pas- 
tor at Sacramento reveals this. The letter of accept- 
ance is as follows : 

" To Rev. A.. L. Stone, D.D., and Rev. J. A. Benton, 
Com. of Trustees of Cal. Tkeol. Sent. Ass'n, 
" Dear Brethren : 

1 ' With much painstaking and prayer I have con- 
sidered the action of the Trustees of the Cal. Theol. 
Seminary, communicated to me in your letter dated* 
Oct. 19th inst., inviting me to be the first professor or 
acting president of the Seminary. 

' ' I shrink from the arduousness of such an under- 
taking, in ' the days of small things, ' of an institution 
of this kind, among a people who generally have little 
preparation or sympathy for it, and little appreciation 
of its necessity. 

"But the importance of the enterprise in relation to 
the whole future of Christianity and civilization on this 
coast, and the influence which this western side of the 
continent is to have on the eastern, and also on the 
commerce of the Pacific and the destiny of the races 
to the west of us, makes me feel that it may be my 
duty to accept, and to work with you and others in the 
capacity named, in founding a school for the training 
of Christian ministers for this vast field. 

*' If I refuse to do so, I am afraid I shall grieve 
Christ. But if Christ calls to this work, he calls not 
one person but the churches. He calls the Christian 



AN INSTITUTION-BUILDER. I41 

people of California. In calling me you only accept 
Christ's call, you do not fulfill and terminate it ; it still 
is resting on you. This conviction gives me heart and 
hope. I shall only be a fellow worker in a common 
cause, working with } r ou, working with and for the 
churches, in some respects your and their organ. But 
without these bonds of a living sympathy and union 
and co-operation, I shall be powerless and useless. 
Only a few things I can do, the rest you and the good 
people of California and the land must do. 

' ' Soon I trust you will be able to call other and bet- 
ter hands to share your work in the Seminary with me. 
I shall need them and welcome them. 

' ' With the conviction that this is to be a co-work, and 
with the understanding, which need hardly be named, 
that the institution is to be conducted 011 a broad cath- 
olic basis of Christian learning, in spirit to be conserv- 
ative of the wisdom and the truth of the past, in meth- 
ods and applications to be alive to the wants of the 
time and region, it is my intention at an early day to 
tender my resignation as pastor, and request a council 
to advise on the question of my dismission. I prefer, 
however, not to enter into the service of the trustees 
till the 1 st of January, and then as a professor." 

The letter resigning the pastorate in order to accept 
the professorship is as follows : 

" To the First Congregational Church of Clirist in Sac- 
ramento, and the Society connected therewith, 
" Dear Brethren and Friends : 
' ' In consequence of the action of the Trustees of the 
California Theological Seminary Association, request- 
ing me to become the first professor of the Seminary, 
and to be ready to begin a course of instruction on the 



142 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. 

ist of January, I have concluded, after much reflection 
and prayer, that it is my duty to tender you the resig- 
nation of my pastoral office with a view to accepting. 

" It is but just to say that I have not sought nor 
desired the proposed change, and that I have come to 
this conclusion with misgiving and sorrow. You have 
borne yourselves toward me and my family kindly and 
generously. I have become warmly attached to you, 
to my work here and the place ; and now to leave as 
pastor a united, devoted, generous people, increasing 
in strength and ability, and just coming into possession 
of long-sought blessings, — in a place which has been 
struggling up against great obstacles, but is now en- 
tering on a career of large and unquestioned prosper- 
ity, a position commanding public respect and honor 
and abounding in the solace of noble Christian com- 
munings, — and engage in an enterprise which must be 
very humble at first, which fails to impress even many 
good people as a prime necessity, which rests on faith 
in ideas and spiritual forces, faith in God and in his 
kingdom on earth, and which aims principally at the 
good of the future and at future results, and this with 
no motives of wealth or ease or gain or more attract- 
ive labor or greater immediate usefulness influencing 
the decision, requires no little moral courage, and 
with the uncertainties still enveloping many of the 
elements of the subject, more sacrifice than I have at 
all times felt like making . 

" But I reflect on the sublime position which Provi- 
dence indicates that this State is to hold in the civiliza- 
tion of the future, as a citadel of the American Repub- 
lic on the Pacific Coast, the key to the Orient, and the 
western side of the moral balance-wheel of the Con- 
tinent. I foresee that it is to be occupied by teeming 



AN INSTITUTION-BUILDER. 1 43 

millions, some of whom, a mixed population, are on 
the way from the ends of the earth, and know that 
these must be met and moulded by Christian institu- 
tions and influences or we shall lose our grand oppor- 
tunity and fail of our sublime mission. I remember 
that to do this we must begin at the commencement of 
the life of the States, and dig deep and build strong 
and lay moral foundations, and that among the most 
essential of these is the means for raising up a supply 
of Christian ministers for all the counties, towns and 
settlements now existing, and hereafter to be in this 
vast domain, and that years must be consumed before 
any adequate supply can be secured, even if we begin 
now. I call all this to mind, and I feel that the work 
of training young men for the Christian ministry under 
these circumstances may have more imperative claims 
on me than the ministerial work of a single parish, and 
that the service of laying the foundation (though it be 
for the present out of sight,) for a future supply of 
preachers of the gospel may be more pleasing to the 
Master and more useful to the future generations than 
to occupy a single pulpit, though it be a conspicuous 
and important one. 

" Accordingly I tender you my resignation, to take 
effect on the first of January, and request you to unite 
with me in calling a council to advise in the prem- 
ises, and, if deemed best, to recommend the termina- 
tion of the pastoral relation at that time. 

" Yours in Christian love and fellowship, 

"I. B. Dwinkll. 

"Sacramento, Nov. 17, 1868." 

At the thought of losing this beloved pastor and 
honored citizen all Sacramento arose as one man. His 



144 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. 

church and congregation took immediate measures to 
induce him to withdraw his resignation. Business 
men not connected with his parish joined in the effort 
to persuade him to remain in Sacramento. Meetings 
were called, and a committee of the church and also a 
joint committee of the church and society presented 
to him the unanimous request of the church, the con- 
gregation and the society that he should withdraw the 
resignation. The sympathy, affection and apprecia- 
tion of his labors, as disclosed at this time, were very 
gratifying to him. Less of a Puritan than he might 
at once have yielded to such an exhibition of enthusi- 
astic devotion. " I fully appreciate these kindly feel- 
ings," is his reply to the church and society, " but the 
question of duty in reference to the call to the Theo- 
logical Seminary is one that so relates to the interests 
of all the churches on this coast that I do not feel at 
liberty to decline it without the advice of a council." 

He then urges that the question be discussed in the 
community, and be carried before the council as one 
that in great measure was to turn, not on personal 
considerations, but on the relative claims of the fields. 
' ' Therefore with all love and good-will to the church 
and society, and with due deference to the action of a 
council, to whom the question may be submitted, I 
now make my resignation, as much as in me lies, 
final. " 

On the fifteenth day of December an Ecclesiastical 
Council of Congregational Churches assembled at the 
church in Sacramento. A large congregation of Sac- 
ramentans assembled also. 

Members of the council, prominent among them Dr. 
A. Iy. Stone, sought to convince the church that the 
call of the seminary to their pastor was none other 



AN INSTITUTION-BUILDKR. 1 45 

than the call of God. The feeling of the church was, 
however, so intense, and the evidence of Dr. Dwin ell's 
eminent usefulness as a pastor in the capital of Cali- 
fornia was so strong, that the most ardent advocates 
in the council of Dr. Dwinell's transfer to the semi- 
nary could not advise the dissolution of the pastoral 
relation. 

To the great joy of his church, and the general sat- 
isfaction of the community, Dr. Dwinell remained in 
Sacramento. 

His second call to a professorship was at the close 
of his long pastorate at Sacramento. The chair to 
which he was called in 1868 was soon filled by Rev. 
J. A. Benton, the immediate and only predecessor of 
Dr. Dwinell in the pastorate of the Sacramento church. 
Subsequently Rev. Geo. Mooar, then pastor of the 
First Congregational Church in Oakland, was called 
to a professorship. For years, while the need of more 
instruction was very great, the way did not open for 
securing it. Meantime the seminary had been send- 
ing year by year young men into California churches, 
and the mission fields of Mexico, Africa and China. 
A score of students were annually in attendance. Dr. 
Dwinell having returned from months of travel in 
Palestine and Europe, was scarcely back in California 
again, when the trustees of the seminary called him to 
the chair of Homiletics — a chair not }^et endowed. 
This position he accepted, and began instruction in 
September, 1884. The permanent endowment of his 
professorship was subsequently given, out of personal 
esteem for him by his friends, Messrs. C. P. Hunting- 
ton, Moses Hopkins and Mrs. Charles Crocker, the 
first and the last of whom had been attendants, in for- 
mer days, upon his ministry in Sacramento. This 



146 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. 

chair he occupied, with great enjoyment on his part 
and with great satisfaction to his pupils, until his life 
work was ended. 

In his two-fold relation to the seminary as trustee 
and teacher, he aimed to build up a Christian institu- 
tion that should be upon a firm financial basis, and that 
should be the peer of any in the land in thoroughness 
of instruction, in catholicity of spirit, and in evangeli- 
cal influence over young men. To this end he builded 
unceasingly alongside his brethren in the "boards of 
trustees and instruction. Letters and memoranda that 
he has left behind show that in season and out of sea- 
son he brought the seminary, its needs and its pro- 
gress, to the attention of men and women, Bast and 
West, whom he hoped to interest in its welfare. Let- 
ters not a few were written to young men, whose 
attention was attracted or hoped to be drawn to the 
Christian ministry. While in Honolulu, less than a 
year before his death, he plead for the foundation of an 
Hawaiian scholarship, by means of which natives of 
the Islands might receive preparation in America for a 
ministry among their own people. He felt that the 
seminaries in the United States have a mission not 
only along the western coast of America, but also 
among the islands of the Pacific, and in Japan and 
China. But while he sought gifts for the institution 
from others, he himself withheld not his own offerings. 
He gave generously while living, and left to be be- 
stowed after his death one thousand dollars as a per- 
manent fund for the seminary library. 

His best gift, however, was himself. The strength 
of his intellect, the richness of his culture, the clear- 
ness of his judgment, his experience, his influence 
among men, and his living faith in God were always 



AN INSTITUTION-BUILDER. 1 47 

upon the altar, ready to be offered in behalf of the 
seminary. While recalling gratefully the noble ser- 
vices and sacrifices of others who stood side by side 
with him in establishing and maintaining the Pacific 
Theological Seminary, one cannot fail to recognize the 
great influence of Dr. Dwinell in the organization and 
subsequent upbuilding of this School of the Prophets. 
It was fitting that he who, for more than a score of 
years, had labored for the seminary, should be found at 
life's close laboring within its walls. He built not 
only/br young men, but shared with others in build- 
ing them up, that they might safely be set for the de- 
fense of the gospel. 

The Seminary was no sooner fairly established than 
the Trustees organized a boarding and day school for 
boys, known first as Golden Gate Academy, and later 
as Hopkins Academy. This school shared Dr. Dwi- 
nell 's wise counsels and earnest prayers, but, for the 
most part, its interests are so allied to those of the 
seminary, that much of what has already been said 
concerning one applies to both. 

For three years, however, from 1884 to 1887, Dr. 
and Mrs. Dwinell lived at the Academy, their daugh- 
ter Mrs. Jewett, with her family, having their home 
there, Mr. Jewett being at that time principal of the 
school . 

During these years Dr. Dwinell was brought into 
close and pleasant relations to the young men and boys. 
His interest in them frequently manifested itself. He 
met them socially and in their meetings for prayer. 
He addressed them from time to time, — now on his 
travels, or some other subject of interest to them, and 
again with tenderness of speech exalting in their 
hearts the wisdom and love of the Great Teacher. 



148 ISRAEL EDSON DWINEEL. 

Many of those who were then pupils in the academy 
have spoken or written most appreciatively of the good 
friend who went in and out among them during those 
three years. Thus he built himself into the lives of 
young men, and planned and prayed that this prepar- 
atory school might be a nursery of strong Christian 
character, as well as a center of high intellectual train- 
ing. 

From the day that the College of California, a Chris- 
tian institution, was surrendered to the University of 
California — a State institution entirely secular, — Dr. 
Dwinell felt that the work of founding a Christian col- 
lege in the State must be again undertaken. He 
greatly deplored and regretted the loss to the Christian 
community of the vantage ground that had been gained 
with great difficulty. With clear vision he saw that 
California Congregationalists would suffer immeas- 
urably without a college of high rank, that should 
take the place waiting for it between the Christian 
Academy and the Theological Seminary. More than 
this, he felt that the tendency to secularism, to mater- 
ialism, to infidelity in other forms, was destined to gain 
momentum on the Pacific coast, unless the Christian 
church used every means in its power to withstand the 
tendency. He felt that as Christianity has been the 
guiding star of our historic civilization, so also must it 
be here and elsewhere its moving spirit. " What we 
want and must have," he wrote, " to save the State, 
is all the agencies and forces of the Gospel of Christ 
in full, broad play over the plains and among the 
mountains. This Christian influence, penetrating the 
homes, the schools, the places of business ; moulding 
the character of the young and the old ; making the 
people kind and righteous ; lifting them up in charac- 
ter and worth and wisdom — this will save the State." 



AN INSTITUTION-BUILDER. 149 

With such convictions burdening him, it is easily to 
be seen why he insisted that the chain of Christian in- 
stitutions, within the denomination to which he be- 
longed, should have all its links. 

A few months before his death he prepared a series 
of propositions on a Christian College, which were to 
be presented, in behalf of a committee of which he was 
chairman, to the General Association of California at 
its approaching meeting. He did not live to present 
them, but the paper was submitted to the Association. 
It was the last time he was represented in the councils 
of the churches of California. Being dead he yet 
spoke, pleading that one more institution of learning 
dedicated to Christ and His Church be founded by Cal- 
ifornia Congregationalists. The propositions referred 
to are as follows : 

A Christian College. 

" 1 . There must be Christian schools of the collegi- 
ate rank, to furnish leaders of Christian thought and 
Christian enterprises. If Christianity gives up the edu- 
cational problem, and abandons the education of those 
who are to be its leaders and defenders to institutions 
where Christianity is ignored, it is doomed. It must 
provide the highest and best educational helps, where 
its friends can drink wisdom from the very fount of 
God, in order to live. 

2. Civilization, as well as Christianity, demands 
the Christian college. If the public welfare requires 
that there should be Christian ministers, editors, teach- 
ers, and managers of Christian institutions and enter- 
prises, and if the State would suffer a total moral col- 
lapse if there were not men trained to occupy these 
positions, there must be the Christian college some- 
where to furnish them. 



150 ISRAKlv KDSON DWINELL. 

3. There is at present no prospect of any such insti- 
tution to meet the wants of our Congregational church- 
es in all the northern part of our State ; yet this part 
of the State is as large as all of New England, and 
contains three-fourths of the area and of the population 
of the whole State, and more than three-fourths of its 
wealth. 

4. The higher Christian education has ever been 
regarded as a special mission of Congregationalists. 
Elsewhere one of their first enterprises in settling a 
new State has been to found a Christian college. They 
have not only provided for their own wants, but fur- 
nished an overplus for other denominations and the 
good of the State at large. Yet forty 3^ears have elapsed, 
and this hereditary privilege and honor of Congrega- 
tionalists still lies before us in this rich and teeming 
and wealthy land. 

5. The Christian college is in no sense antagonistic 
to the State institutions. It helps them and is in turn 
helped by them. 

6. The Congregational college is in its whole spirit 
and genius simply Christian ; all other Christian col- 
leges are sectarian in comparison. 

7. If we do not provide for Christian education in 
this part of the State, other denominations will ; and 
we shall be dependent on them, or be obliged to send 
our sons away ; or we shall abandon the desire of hav- 
ing any leadership in raising up master-minds for com- 
ing generations. 

8. The critical period of education is when the pu- 
pil is passing out from the absorbing age, the age of 
receiving instruction, to the age of thinking for him- 
self, and crystalizing his thoughts around his own per- 
sonality, and becoming the master of himself. That 



•AN INSTITUTION-BUILDER. 151 

is the time when he needs especially to be under the 
quickening influences of the Christian college, to put 
him safely on his feet. 

9. Experience is beginning to show that the effect- 
iveness of education is not so mnch dependent on the 
number of elective courses offered to the student,* as 
upon the personal enthusiasm centered on a limited 
number of the last disciplinary studies. The small col- 
lege, with its concentration and magnetism, has often 
proved more than a match for the large college, with 
its platitudes and thinness and looseness. 

10. The university idea and method, aspired after 
b}^ so many ambitious colleges, is properly fit only for 
those who have passed the college grade. Thrust for- 
ward and down from its proper place — professional 
studies and the higher reaches of science and philoso- 
phy — to collegiate studies, it is out of place, and is 
weakening and distracting to the highest educational 
force. 

11. It is a mistake to suppose that it is necessary 
that a large sum should be in sight to j ustify the begin- 
ning of a Christian college. Very few of the 333 Chris- 
tian colleges in the United States began in that way. 
The}^ began poor, and struggled on through many years 
of poverty. That is the normal way for a Christian 
college to begin, expanding as it needs expansion and 
knows how to expand. In this way fewer mistakes 
are made, more of the self-sacrificing spirit enters it, 
and it stands in warmer relation to the churches. 

12. Education in the Christian college costs the 
public, the founders, less than education in the State 
institutions. Rev. H. D. Jenkins has shown in the 
Interior that education in the 55 state and secular insti- 
tutions of the highest grade in the United States, with 



152 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. 

their 10,824 students, costs the public $200 a year to 
educate a pupil ; while in the 333 Christian colleges, 
with 38,355 students, it costs only $90 a year each. 

13. The starting of a college in an earnest and de- 
termined way, on faith and self-sacrifice, though with 
a small beginning, will soon become a center of sym- 
pathy and effort — something for the friends of Chris- 
tian education to work around and towards. There 
may be years of hard struggle, but the time will come 
when wealthy men will be glad to give their hundreds 
of thousands to it. 

14. What is first of all needed is the conviction that 
we must have a Christian college, and then throw our- 
selves upon our wits and the leadings of Providence to 
find out the best way to secure one. 

15. If $50,000 could be raised to put a first-class 
professor in Hopkins Academy, to carry students for- 
ward in collegiate studies, a beginning might be 
made to meet wants that already exist. As the want 
increased, the question might still be an open one, 
whether to build up the college on the basis of Hopkins 
Academy, or transfer the professorship to another or- 
ganization, and have the college an entirely separate 
institution." 

Many of these propositions read like axioms. They 
need no demonstration, they admit of no argument. 
Together they carry great weight, and without doubt 
only the pressing necessities of the institutions already 
founded have interfered with efforts to found in Central 
California a college like Pomona and Forest Grove. 

Still another institution of learning claimed the 
counsels of Dr. Dwinell. When the founders of Mills 
Seminary in California placed that prosperous school 



AN INSTITUTION-BUILDER. 1 53 

for 3^oung ladies in the hands of a permanent Board of 
Trustees, Dr. Dwinell, upon the invitation of Dr. and 
Mrs. Mills, accepted a position as Trustee, and in time 
became the second President of the Board. 

Later, the institution received a charter as a college 
for young women, and at the time of his death Dr. Dwi- 
nell was Vice-President of the Board of Trustees. 

The following tributes sufficiently explain his rela- 
tion to the college, and his labors in its behalf : 

[Extract from a sermon preached in Mills College by Rev. 
Geo. Mooar, D.D., from the text, " I have no man like minded 
who - will naturally care for your state."] 

' * Is it any wonder that a man so full in his endow- 
ment should have the passion for taking part in such 
institutions as this, and certain rare qualifications for 
the part he was to take ? That part was not, indeed, 
like that which the founders of this institution or the 
great donors elsewhere have had. It was the part of 
counsel, of careful scrutiny, of helpful suggestion, 
made not by one who stood outside or afar off, but by 
one who had so identified himself with the work be- 
gun and in progress here that he could no more forget 
it than his right hand could forget its cunning. And 
it was so ordered that the very last remains of bodily 
and mental strength that were left to be consumed in 
any public service were consumed on this spot, offered 
up indeed on this very platform. For he went imme- 
diately hence to learn that the harp of a thousand strings 
could keep in tune no longer. 

The reason, certainly the reason above all others, 
why he came to be so identified here, was that he was 
assured that these grounds, buildings and foundations 



154 ISRAKIy EDSON DWINKIvL. 

had been consecrated to the Name which is above 
every name. For while there was so much in the in- 
tellect of Dr. Dwinell to admire, and his training and 
acquirement were so sympathetic with all learning as 
to make him at home among scientific and literary men 
anywhere, yet the most admirable thing to us who 
knew him day by day was his simple but most thorough 
Christian loyalty. He was like-minded with Paul 
and Timothy, because he had " the mind which was 
also in Christ Jesus," and which is so wonderfully set 
forth in a passage of the same Philippian Epistle. 
This loyalty was one of conviction and of consistency ; 
it penetrated his life like leaven, and had been in life's 
discipline kneaded into every particle. But it was 
adoration also. More than once in the quiet of our 
morning hour of prayer at the seminary, this self- 
restrained man was barely able, even in his suppressed 
emotion, to finish the praise and petition with which 
his soul was charged. 

Could such a man count a young man or young 
woman in any highest sense educated, even though 
accomplished in the sciences and the arts, if the heart 
and mind had never felt the power, persuasion and 
moulding of the love that passeth knowledge ? ' ' 

At a meeting of the Trustees of Mills College, the 
following report of a special committee was adopted : 

In Memoriam. 

" The Trustees of Mills College hereby place on record 
their sense of the loss sustained in the death of the late 
Dr. Israel K. Dwinell, a member of their Board. His 
decease was not only a great loss to this institution, 



AN INSTITUTION-BUILDER. 1 55 

but having by his eminent attainments as a scholar, 
divine and author won both a state and national rep- 
utation, his loss was also recognized in this wider sense. 

Dr. Dwinell had devoted the maturer years of his 
life to pastorates in Salem, Mass., and in Sacramento, 
closing his active and useful life as a professor in the 
Theological Seminary at Oakland, and as Vice-Presi- 
dent and Chairman of the Educational Committee of 
this Board. His services in the latter office were ren- 
dered at a critical time in the history of the institution. 

Dr. Dwinell was a wise counselor and a steadfast 
friend. He had the clearest convictions of duty, and 
he followed these bravely and honestly, uninfluenced 
by clamor or unfriendly criticism. He had that clear 
discernment and sharp spiritual insight — the clarified 
vision — that seemed to fulfill the Scripture declaration 
that the path of the just shall be brighter and brighter 
unto the perfect day. 

Dr. Dwinell gave freely his time and energies to 
this college. His last public service was rendered in 
its behalf. He had carefully taken account of its 
larger field of usefulness, and its great opportunities. 
To him the institution had become of far greater im- 
portance than any individual interest. He appreciated 
the munificent gift which had been made by the found- 
ers to the public. He stood in the relation of a foster 
parent, and to the last he cherished this child of his 
love as the apple of his eye. He watched over its in- 
terests. His sense of the trust was uppermost. He 
would not consent that caprice, hypocrisy, or any want 
of moral fibre should stand in the way of its prosper- 
ity. He was faithful unto the end. He was every- 
where the Christian gentleman, the accomplished 



156 • ISRAKL BDSON DWINEI/L. 

scholar, and the steadfast friend of all who had won 
his confidence. . 

He has gone before, but there is left to us that mem- 
ory of his unselfish work, and the grace and beauty of 

a noble life. 

Wm. C. Bartxktt, 

Chairman of the Committee." 



CHAPTER XV. 

A CHRISTIAN I^ADER. 

For many years Dr. Dwinell was a corporate mem- 
ber of the American Board of Commissioners for For- 
eign Missions. Throughout his ministry he was a 
generous contributor to its treasury. Unceasingly he 
sought to raise the standard of benevolent giving in his 
congregation, and by " monthly concerts " of prayer, 
by frequent sermons, and by the distribution of mis- 
sionary literature, he sought to arouse interest in the 
work of the American Board. Whenever possible he 
attended its annual meetings, and was prominent in 
its discussions. 

He came to the defense of the Prudential Committee 
in the controversy introduced at the meeting of the 
Board at Des Moines, Iowa, in 1886, not because he 
deprecated investigation and discussion of doctrines 
and of methods, but because he felt that the issue 
pressed at Des Moines and subsequently was ' ■ in the 
interest of a policy that is absolutely revolutionary." 
It was not that a questionable doctrine was broached, 
but that he felt it was being " diligently propagated, " 
to the injury of the cause of Missions. " The Ameri- 
can Board," he felt, "was founded, among other 
things, on the belief that probation is limited to this 
life. * * The Apostle Paul preached a gospel that 
was good news for sinners in this life. All the other 
Apostles and primitive disciples, so far as we have any 



158 ISRAEL EDSON DWINEEL. 

intimation, preached a gospel that was good news for 
sinners in this world. * * * The Prudential Com- 
mittee will do well to wait for further instructions be- 
fore it becomes a party to sending out one who, though 
he comes in the guise of an apostle or an angel from 
heaven, preaches any other gospel than that which 
Christ and the apostles preached." 

This was his position. The hypothesis of probation 
after death would have arrested his attention, and 
might have arrayed against it his powerful pen, under 
any circumstances ; but his active participation in a 
controversy that for several years threatened the unity 
of the Congregational denomination was brought 
about through the attitude of the " New Departure " 
movement toward the American Board. 

This movement in all its relations deeply interested 
and pained Dr. Dwinell. Although far removed, geo- 
graphically, from Andover and Boston, he quickly 
stood in the foremost rank of those who controverted 
the Andover hypothesis. By voice in meetings of the 
American Board, and by pen in the religious press, he 
maintained the historical position of the Congregation- 
al churches, as expressed by their confessions of faith, 
or implied, as he believed, by their silence, — that the 
judgment turns upon the deeds done in the body. 

In The Independent, TJie Advance and The Pacific he 
presented his views on the subject at issue, with a 
strength of argument that, by many, was regarded as 
unanswerable. Especially vigorous and effective were 
several articles in The Independent, entitled, "Side 
Lights on Questions under Discussion." In one of 
these is a passage that may be taken as representing 
his idea of true Conservatism : — " Progress is only 
such movement as is along: the line of Truth. The 



A CHRISTIAN LEADER. 1 59 

cause which is the subject of this progress is, at every 
point of that line, in a state of unstable equilibrium, 
having elements in it which mighty forces from be- 
neath fasten on and tug at to draw it on, at first 
apparently forward, but really down, down, toward 
perdition, and elements which celestial forces, finer, 
more spiritual, more divine, fasten on to draw it upward. 
It is only by eternal vigilance and self-sacrifice by the 
friends of Truth, at all these points, that the forces 
from beneath, which have Progress for their watchword, 
are resisted, and the celestial forces, which lead to real 
Progress, followed. The great progress which theol- 
ogy has made during the last century and a half it has 
made by a mighty resistance, at a thousand points, to 
tendencies and drifts which were pulling it in the 
direction of error, and which were heralded by their 
advocates as measures of Progress. * * * 

"How presumptuous, how fatal, in the face of the 
facts of history, to assume that mere stepping onward is 
a movement in the direction of the day ! 

" Holding to the Truth, even at a snail's pace, with 
the eye fixed on it and the face beaming with it, not 
mere stepping, stepping, stepping onward, no matter 
how rapidly or grandly, in an unknown direction, is 
the one divine and eternal mark of the party of pro- 
gress. To find the progressive party, then, we must 
look for those who meet the tests of truth. These, we 
Congregationalists, by all our traditions and genius, 
believe we find in God's Word. They who hold to the 
light and to the tests issuing from that, are the ones 
who are headed toward the Coming Day." 

Dr. Dwinell's motives in entering into such a con- 
troversy as is referred to above are truthfully expressed 
in an editorial in The Pacific, written by his friend and 



l6o ISRAEL EDSON DWINEEE. 

colaborer, Rev. Dr. Benton. " He would stand for 
nothing except in conscience. He must regard him- 
self as ethically right, or he would not move at all ; 
and when he felt that the right was with himself he 
would not be moved &\. all. In the recent conflicts that 
have disturbed the American Board, for instance, as a 
Corporate Member, the conservative side seemed to 
him gigantically the side of honor, right and righteous- 
ness, and his whole nature poured itself into pen, speech 
and action for that side of the conflict, and for the 
success of the Board in the line of its antecedents." 

In other directions Dr. Dwinell was prominent as 
a Christian leader. An early advocate of the National 
Council of Congregational Churches, he took part in 
those held in Oberlin in 1871, in New Haven in 1874, 
and in Worcester in 1889. At New Haven he was an 
Assistant Moderator. At Worcester he preached the 
opening sermon. 

His text was from Isaiah 55:4; ' ' Behold, I have 
given him for a witness to the peoples, a leader and 
commander to the peoples. ' ' His subject was ' ' Christ 
among the Peoples." 

In this sermon, speaking of the part the denomina- 
tion to which he belonged has in Christian work for 
the country and the world, he says : — "It certain^' 
will not be by our numbers or ecclesiastical importance 
that we shall act a prominent part in that bright 
future, but by our ideas, principles, spirit — the Christ 
in us. Palestine was an insignificant territory, yet it 
gave religion to the world ; Greece, but a patch of soil, 
yet it developed ideas of grace and beauty for the race. 
It is not size that determines leadership. 

" Our influence in the kingdom of God has already- 
far outreached our numbers. We have put not a little 



A CHRISTIAN LEADER. l6l 

life into other denominations, not only b} T scions 
grafted in them, but by radiation and diffusion of spir- 
it. The Congregational genius — orderly liberty and 
willing harmom T , or freedom and unit} T — has invaded 
and tinged all the other bodies of Christians in the 
land. The Congregational spirit is a sun among the 
polities ; and whether seen on its daily rounds, at its 
rising above Plymouth Rock, or glittering from the 
lakes in meridian splendor, or as it goes out at the 
Golden Gate for the Islands and Japan, on its way 
round the earth, it is everywhere the same sun. Its 
influence belts the globe. Christ is Congregational- 
izing the denominations, and cardinals, bishops, assem- 
blies, conferences are gradually yielding before the 
omnipresent, gigantic, conscious lay-awakening it 
fosters. The Evangelical Alliance, the Pan-Presb} T ter- 
ian Councils, the conventions in the interest of Chris- 
tian and ecclesiastical union, are monuments Congre- 
gationalwise — possibly forecast gleams of something 
larger, richer, diviner hereafter. Every one sees the 
tendency, every one knows it, though every one may 
not give due credit to the historical source. * * * 

1 ' So much we have now to give [autonomj- of the in- 
dividual ecclesiastical systems and the principle of fel- 
lowship]. Whatever more we shall be able to give 
will depend on how much more of Christ we shall have 
centered and compacted in us to give Henceforth, 
church organization, to be successful, must be around 
Christ. The church of the future can have no other 
center." 

This sermon, entire, is printed with the Minutes of 
the National Council of 1889. 

Dr. Dwinell was one of the Committee on Creden- 
tials which had before it, at Worcester, the vexed 



1 62 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. 

question of the reception of delegates from the General 
Conference (white) of Georgia, which had not hitherto 
affiliated with the General Association (colored) that 
had been recognized already by the Council. 

At the time of his death Dr. Dwinell was a delegate 
to the International Congregational Conference held 
subsequent to his death in London, and had been 
selected to present a paper before that body. 

In 1887 Dr. Dwinell was called to occupy a chair in 
one of the leading Theological Seminaries of New 
England. The vacancy, temporary, was likely to re- 
sult, and did result, in a permanent opening, which on 
many accounts it would have been a great satisfaction 
to Dr. Dwinell to fill. For several weeks he weighed 
the question carefully, but finally his love for Pacific 
Seminary, and his regard for the necessities of the 
work on the Pacific Coast, led him to decline the very 
flattering invitation from the East, although the chair 
he filled in Oakland was still unendowed, and the In- 
stitution was, as yet, unable to offer its Faculty of 
instruction adequate compensation for their services. 

Among the reasons for declining the invitation, as 
recorded in his diary, are disappointment to the stu- 
dents at Oakland, and temporary injury to the Sem- 
inary. 

Thus in State and Nation, and beyond the seas, he 
was called to high and honorable service, and was rec- 
ognized as a Christian leader, whom Robert Browning- 
might have had in mind when he wrote : 

" One who never turned his back, but marched breast forward, 
Never doubted clouds would break, 

Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would 
triumph." 






CHAPTER XVI. 

TRAVELS ABROAD. 

At the conclusion of his pastorate Dr. and Mrs. 
Dwinell removed temporarily to Redwood, spending 
several months at the home of their daughter, Mrs. 
Wilcox . 

Freed from pastoral care, Dr. Dwinell kept up his 
studious habits, writing much and reading more, yet 
enjoying much during the passing months the home 
life, the church services, and strolls and drives in the 
beautiful valley. 

In January following, accompanied by Mrs. Dwi- 
nell, he left California for a visit to Europe and the 
Orient. 

Going East via New Orleans and Nashville, where 
they made a brief visit with Mrs. Dwinell's brother-in- 
law, Mr. Joseph Allen, to whom Dr. Dwinell makes 
reference in his account of his wedding, they proceeded 
to New York, whence they sailed for Liverpool. 

In accordance with an understanding previously 
reached, they hurried on to Jerusalem, in order to 
overtake and thereafter accompany Dr. and Mrs. C. L. 
Goodell in their travels through the Orient. 

Their journey included Egypt and the Holy Land, 
Smyrna, Constantinople, Athens, Italy, Switzerland, 
France, Great Britain and Ireland. They were absent 
from home about seven months. 

It was a period of rare enjoyment and profit to the 



164 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. 

travelers. Dr. Dwinell — alwa}-s observant, not of 
places only but also of peoples, their social, industrial, 
and religious condition — while absent wrote two series 
of letters to the press in San Francisco, twenty in all. 
Of these, twelve appeared in the Evening Bulletin, and 
eight in The Pacific. 

His review of the characteristics of the chief cities 
which he visited is given in the twelfth and last of the 
letters to the Bulletin. It is original and poetical in all 
its descriptions, and is reproduced here as it reveals a 
style full of imager}- not often found in his more 
weighty writings. It is as follows : 

' ' Why the Paintings of the Great Masters 

Survive. Characteristics of Foreign 

Cities. 

New York, Aug. 1, 1884. 

From Naples we made a tour through Central and 
Northern Italy, France and Great Britain, stopping at 
many of the important and historical and artistic cen- 
ters, seeing the sights. This brings me more within 
the range of your other correspondents, and of things 
more familiar to your readers. Besides, we were 
more interested in visiting the museums and galleries 
of art, and I confess my incompetency to enter this 
vast realm, and give any detailed, independent accounts 
to your readers. I shall content myself with a general 
observation on works of art, and a rapid characteriza- 
tion of the cities we have visited, making to them the 
goodly salaam. 

I have been everywhere struck with this fact, that 
the works of the great masters, which have been rec- 
ognized by the ages as having supreme merit, and 



TRAVELS ABROAD. 1 65 

which are held up as the world's master-pieces, are 
marked by great simplicity, and an entire absence of 
the sensational or appeals to foreign grounds of inter- 
est. The artist throws away everything that does not 
help bring out the ideal conception. He thinks more 
of expression, soul, character, than of striking attitudes, 
drapery, circumstances ; though these things are care- 
fully thought of, subordinated and harmonized to the 
leading idea, not to attract attention to themselves. 
So simple are the great works, and so little that is 
meretricious is there about them, that at first one is 
likely to feel a little disappointment in seeing them ; 
and not till he ceases to expect the striking, and is in 
a good mood to rise calmly and collectedly to the ideal 
world, can he see and feel their supreme worth. The 
sensationalist dies ; the true artist who despises the 
cheap applause of the day, arising from sensational 
appeals, lives, and after generations pronounce him 
great. Does not the same principle apply in other de- 
partments — in poetry, in oratory, in character, in a 
useful life ? If Praxitiles, Phidias, Raphael, Michael 
Angelo, Titian, Canova, Thorwalsden, must subordi- 
nate the sensational to the ideal, the striking to the 
true, must not the orator do it, and the preacher, and 
that greater artist who is engaged in shaping his own 
self-hood or living a good life among men ? 

Individuality of Great Cities. 

Having traveled and visited many cities, I find, as 
I look back over them, that each stands out with an 
individuality of its own. Something in its situation, 
its conduct, its population, its appearance, casts over 
it a distinctive color, in which it spontaneously rises 



1 66 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. 

before my imagination. It is interesting to me to look 
back over the stately array, and see them as a proces- 
sion of fair women, arrayed in these fresh and charac- 
teristic colors. These distinctive colors are not ex- 
haustive. They do not exclude other tints ; they are 
not so pronounced that other persons might not see 
and designate them differently ; but they are there, and 
I will give those of some of the most prominent of the 
cities. 

Alexandria sits demurely by the sea, an oriental 
maiden attracted to the sandy shore of the Mediter- 
ranean, to barter her spices, silks, mats, with the in- 
fidel, concluding to remain there and wander no more. 

Jaffa lifts up her head from a rocky cliff, and with 
one hand salutes the Mediterranean, and with the other 
welcomes the caravans from Damascus and Jerusalem. 

Jerusalem is still the child of faith, dwelling where 
little grows, where there is naturally little trade or com- 
merce, or manufacturing ; drawing her supplies mys- 
teriously from the rocks and skies ; yet different races, 
different religions, different civilizations believe in her 
and huddle together about her, awaiting something 
that does not appear. 

Jerusalem, sitting alone on the rocky mountain side 
of Judea, is the sublime child of faith, coming of faith 
in the past, looking forward to the future by faith. 

Damascus is the fair Naiad issuing from the Abana 
or Baroda, mysteriously changing its musical waters 
into olive groves, tropical' luxuriance and a teeming 
population, and sitting in queenly robes, with her feet 
in the sands of the desert of the Hauran, amidst 
mosques and minarets and robed men, smoking the 
nargileh on divans, or by playing fountains and cool- 
ing streams. 



TRAVELS ABROAD. 1 67 

Beirut, standing proudly on a peninsula-shaped 
headland on one side of a beautiful crescent bay, is the 
commercial or moral mistress of Syria, sending the 
currents of life up the French highway to Damascus, 
as the heart sends the blood through the arteries to the 
head. 

Smyrna is the mistress of two ages and civiliza- 
tions, reposing on a quiet plateau by the sea, welcom- 
ing the commerce of the West, guarding the grave of 
Polycarp, and the manners and forms of the Bast. 

Constantinople, at a. distance, is the sightliest of the 
cities, but on approaching near you see she wears a 
mask, and behind that mask you perceive restlessness, 
discontent, perfidy, and sullen waiting for revolution 
or chaos. 

Athens is the bride of the cities. She holds in 
one hand a broken marble, pointing to the ruins of her 
art in the heroic ages— the art which has conquered 
the world — and in the other, the scepter of new spring- 
ing power. 

Naples, as we approach it by steamer from the 
South and around the point, rises up out of the sea as 
a charming, timid apparition, shrinking away from 
Vesuvius, who holds a smoking firebrand in one hand 
shaking it over her head, and yet afraid to go in the 
other direction, as he thrusts his other hand into his 
subterranean pocket, touching secret springs that let 
off convulsions in Ischia and the regions beyond her. 

Rome, the attractive, the interesting, the historic, 
the hider and revealer of the secrets of her mother, the 
" Mistress of the World," sitting in a royal way on 
her seven hills, full as she is of art and history, is 
nothing else in form so much as she is a saint. She is 
the high priestess in her tent of the cities of the earth. 



1 68 ISRAEL KDSON DWINELL. 

Religion is scrolled upon her buildings outside and in- 
side, on her streets, on her calendar, on her garments, 
on her food and manners. I do not know how far this 
sainthood strikes in, or what it is worth. I speak only 
of color. 

Florence, one of the queens, reposes half asleep, 
half awake, in a beautiful cradle of the Appenines, 
dreaming over the splendors of the past, displaying 
still a matchless profusion of art treasures, and beguil- 
ing those who come under the influence of her charms 
through labyrinths of plastic and painted beauty. 

Venice, the daughter of commerce, sits with her 
feet in the Adriatic, snuffing the breezes of the sea, 
browned and weather-beaten, and her white robes 
soiled, as she has toyed with the gondoliers and water- 
sprites so long. 

Paris is the city of sentiment. Not so much ideas 
or principles, or even prudence or policy, as sentiment 
reigns. The inspiration of her patriotism is the love 
of glor} 7 ; of her letters and her arts, the desire to 
gratify artificial demands and tastes, rather than to 
portray ideal truth, or to exalt humanity ; of her efforts 
in dress and manners, to create and maintain a blind, 
imperial goddess, Fashion, and compel others to wor- 
ship at her shrine. Sentiment is the height and depth, 
length and breadth of the popular feeling. It is curi- 
ous to note that painters and sculptors in Paris do not 
rely on the expression of soul, of character in their 
works, so much as on extrinsic circumstances, sensa- 
tional attitudes, combinations, adjuncts. If you see a 
statue of liberty on a column in a public square, she is 
represented as standing on tiptoe on one foot, throw- 
ing the other far up in the air behind, leaning far for- 
ward with a flaming torch in her hand, and her wings 



TRAVELS ABROAD. 1 69 

spread, as if eager to leave the spot and fly away to 
the ends of the earth ; while your whole thought is ab- 
sorbed in the figure, and you have no interest in the 
face. You see no character, no truth, no ideal. You 
have a sensational display. Yet Paris, in her clean 
robes, is attractive and beautiful. 

London is the irreducible mystery. I have been in 
it longer than in any other foreign city, traversed it 
more in all directions and all ways, and it is a mystery 
to me still. Its "streets," ''roads," "rows," "plac- 
es," "courts," "squares," — all these terms being 
used in different places with a constancy of application 
and an apparent absence of any reason for it, in many 
cases quite wonderful — run in all directions, having 
neither p'an nor system. The}' are straight, crooked, 
curved ; they have outlets ; they have none ; they are 
intercepted by gates, bars, and posts. Some are open 
for foot passengers only, some for pleasure carriages, 
not for cabs ; some for all these and not for trucks ; 
and a personal knowledge of each is necessary to know 
which. The city has grown, — it has not been built. 
It reminds me of the devil-fish, a good-natured devil- 
fish, a devil-fish with the devil left out. It began by a 
small fortress on the eminence now known as Ludgate 
or Tower Hill, called Llyn-dun or " Hill Fortress by 
the Pool." It was soon surrounded in the region by 
many hamlets and villages, each with its own arrange- 
ment of streets, and with peculiar "exclusive rights of 
some of its citizens in the ownership of land and other 
properties. Now it was its nature to grow indefinitely, 
and, as it grew, it stretched out its arms, and drew it- 
self around first one and then another of these towns, 
not to devour and absorb them, not to crush them, or 
destroy their peculiar local individuality and autonomy, 



170 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. 

but, on the contrary, to introduce its own vitality, re- 
sources and power into it. London, consequently, is 
the combination of hundreds of separate villages, with 
all their original streets having their first names, vest- 
ed rights and peculiarities intact. London first lost 
itself in them, and then they lost themselves in London. 
Hence, as you travel over it, you find hundreds of sep- 
arate commercial centers, manufacturing centers, edu- 
cational centers, literary and artistic centers, and elee- 
mosynary and governmental centers. There is nothing 
elsewhere like it in the world. Like the English po- 
litical constitution, it has grown, and not been made. 

Here, also, is the secret of its strength, and of the vi- 
tality of the articulation of its parts ; of the wonder that 
four and a half millions of people — more than the pop- 
ulation of all Scotland— can live together in peace and 
harmony under one roof, while no one mind or govern- 
ment grasps the situation, or looks upon more than one 
side of the civil mystery, the side nearest it. A bill is 
now before Parliament for the formation of one cen- 
tralized government over the whole city, but it is doubt- 
ful whether as much may not be lost in the want of 
flexibility and adaptation of such a system, as ma}' be 
gained in overcoming the present want of unity and 
questions of conflicting jurisdiction ; while the amount 
of local responsibility and interest for the management 
of municipal affairs would be very much diminished. 

Liverpool is the child of the modern era, of the new 
civilization, the civilization of cotton and commerce, 
manufacturing and money making. For the past one 
hundred and twenty years it has regularly doubled its 
population, and its wealth every twenty years. It is 
England looking out to America and the world ; it is 
American in its spirit and genius, looking in upon 



TRAVELS ABROAD. 171 

England, and astonishing it with its activity and enter- 
prise. 

Edinburgh, the gaily attired daughter of the North, 
has charms that none of her sisters have. In situation, 
she is of the type of the highlands. Architecturally, 
though using stone exclusively, she has overcome its 
difficulties, and arrayed herself most picturesquely. 
Her airy gables, dormer windows, turrets and high 
cylinder chimneys, together with the intermingling of 
buildings of various forms and sizes, breaking the mo- 
notony of blocks and streets, and bringing out striking 
reliefs and effects, produce a general appearance, as 
one glances over its wide stretches of buildings, of one 
vast interconnected Gothic pile. Doubtless, the archi- 
tecture of separate buildings looked at in detail would 
be quite open to criticism on the basis of any one clas- 
sic standard ; but in general effect, when one is not 
hypercritical, and is read)' to be pleased with what is 
picturesque and attractive in combination, Edinburgh 
is a beautiful city. The separate leaves of a tree ma}' 
not be beautiful, the individual limbs may not be at- 
tractive, the single tree may be open to criticism, but 
the combination of leaves, limbs and trees in a forest, 
when viewed at a distance, is nearly always beautiful. 
Critics, who carry the eye of a Ruskin to each building 
and each part of the building, ma}^ criticise Edinburgh 
and go into raptures over Venice ; but an eye that con- 
templates the effect of combination will pronounce 
Edinburgh a beautiful city, in comparison with the 
monotonous streets of Venice. 

Glasgow, as a city of residences, a seat of thought 
and architectural beauty, is far inferior to Edinburgh, 
but as a commercial center it is far superior. It is in 
Scotland what Liverpool is in England. It is the head 



172 ISRAEL EDSON DWINEEL- 

of Scotland in the realm of the furnace, the loom and 
the counting-room. 

Belfast is the sprightly Irish linen girl. She spins, 
weaves, embroiders, bleaches, displays the most snowy 
and delicate fabrics. While her sisters in the south of 
the Green Isles are dejected, apprehensive, pallid, she 
is confident and joyous. In spite of the tariff laws she 
wraps her snowy tissues around the sons and daughters 
of America, and multiplies her wealth and enlarges her 
borders. Long may the Irish linen girl, the last of my 
foreign city acquaintances, live and thrive, a bright 
witness to wailing, hysterical, desperate Ireland that 
industry, temperance and the disposition to make the 
best of things may lead even them to contentment, 
civil order and prosperity. 

The following letter is the last of a series of eight 
that were published in The Pacific, of San Francisco. 

Missions in Turkey. 

Constantinople is a live Protestant missionary center. 
Like Beirut, its influence in this respect is felt far and 
wide. But the intensity of the missionary life is far 
less visible in Constantinople than in Beirut. In Beirut 
the strong men of the mission have been kept close 
together in a much smaller city, populated by fewer 
nationalities, having but one ruling language, the 
Arabic, in which all the missionary operations can be 
carried on, with no great natural barrier obstructing 
the subtle, diffusive influence of Christianity running 
through the community, and dividing into separate 
and mutually repulsive groups. The result is, that 
after sixty years of strong, concentrated, patient work. 



TRAVELS ABROAD. 1 73 

Beirut is a conspicuous, throbbing center of missionary 
power. It shines as a lighthouse in the dark region, 
the light brightest at its source, and gradually fading 
out, though its beams can be distinctly traced forty, 
sixty, and a hundred miles back in the interior. In 
Constantinople, on the other hand, while the men have 
been just as eminent for strength, learning, wisdom 
and piety, they have been buried in a population of a 
million of people, made up of three or four disconnected 
co-ordinate races, and six or eight other subordinate 
ones,with no prevalent languages, with absolute barriers 
dropped down through society, across which it is next 
to impossible for influence to pass ; and what they do 
to produce any perceptible effect on the place must be 
done separately and independently, by a prodigal multi- 
plication of effort on the Mussulmen by the use of the 
Turkish language here, and the Arabic there ; on the 
Armenians by the help of their tongue, on the Greeks 
by the means of the Greek. Besides, they have been 
at the seat of the Turkish Government, and most ex- 
posed to its watchings, suspicions, obstructions and 
procrastinations. 

Yet, what I call the Turkish Mission, grouping all 
the separate stations and missions in the empire under 
one head, has gained in strength and power wonder- 
fully. The missionaries have quietly gone on master- 
ing the languages of the divided heterogeneous popula- 
tion, so as to be able to reach all their neighbors, till a 
missionary who can preach or teach in only one foreign 
tongue is regarded as having but a limited preparation, 
and one, Mrs. Baldwin of the Brousa School, told me 
she could teach equally well in the Turkish, Armenian 
or Greek, besides the English. They have put the 
Bible into all the leading tongues, in good scholarly 
and yet popular translations. 



174 ISRAEL EDSON DWINEEE. 

They have planted schools, colleges and seminaries 
for the training of young men for the ministry, young 
ladies for teachers, and both for other useful positions. 
They have a large Bible House and printing establish- 
ment, employing about forty men, and scatter by sale 
one hundred thousand publications a year among the 
people, besides papers. Robert College has over two 
hundred young men, of more than twelve races, all 
but about forty of whom are in the college course ; and 
when I looked on them as they assembled for morning 
worship, and heard them all read in concert a psalm in 
English — the whole instruction is in the English tongue 
— with slow, appreciative, emphatic, rhythmic utter- 
ance, it was an inspiring scene. The Girls' School at 
Scutari, just across the Bosporus, though not so large, 
is doing a hardly less hopeful and noble work for the 
women of Turkey. Here, too, the instruction is in 
English, that the girls may be not only educated, but 
educated in a language that has a literature worth read- 
ing, and making it possible for them to have intercourse 
with the nations having the most influence in modern 
civilization. This enginery, and much more, is visible 
about Constantinople, but the moral and civil effects 
on the social system as a whole are not very conspicu- 
ous in the vicinity. About Constantinople is the hid- 
ing of the moral power of the Turkish mission. It 
breaks out farther away in the interior. The influence 
which seems lost in the noisy and bitter metropolis be- 
comes mighty and transforming in the remote districts 
and more homogeneous communities. If Beirut is a 
lighthouse shining far inland, but with ever fainter 
rays, Constantinople may be compared to gas works, 
which are comparatively invisible themselves, and have 
invisible connections, but cause jets of light to spring 



TRAVELS ABROAD. 1 75 

up, and illuminate many points far from them. And 
yet there are changes going on in Constantinople under 
the influence of missionaries which show that it is not 
wholly lost. In passing through the Turkish bazaars, 
I saw a long succession of stalls packed with Turkish 
books of all sizes and styles and kinds of binding, an 
assortment as varied and numerous, I should say, in 
that one section, as all of Bancroft's in San Francisco 
would make. Such a sight, a missionary who had been 
in Turkey more than twenty years, who was with me, 
said was unknown and impossible when he went there. 
There is an unconscious quickening of the Turkish 
intellect under the influences from abroad ; and it is 
the revolutionary religious ideas from abroad that are 
most feared in Turkey, and which have most to do with 
this renaissance. The teaching of a pure morality 
and benevolent living by the missionaries is gradually 
passing over into the teachings of the Turks, and in- 
fluencing the standard of every-day living ; and not a 
few among them, especially of the young men, are 
secret inquirers after the truth. The leaven is hidden, 
but it is at work, and I could recount cases, if it were 
wise to do so, which would gladden Christian hearts. 

But the national and civil influence of our govern- 
ment in the Levant does not help our missionaries. 
The Turk does not respect right ; he respects iron- 
clads and bombshells. The other powers with which 
he has had to do have prodded his sides when he has 
been insolent or surly. America has taken it meekly, 
and talked with him about it on paper ; and mow the 
Turk has no respect for the paper talks, nor the power 
that relies on them. The consequence is, our Minister, 
General Wallace, who had tried to protect American 
rights, has found himself without influence with the 



176 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. 

Sultan and Porte, and Americans feel humiliated in the 
East, and experience innumerable hardships and delays 
in carrying an}- measure through to a practical issue 
that requires the sanction of the government. In man}' 
cases they have sought the aid of the officials of the 
British Gvernment, when matters required prompt 
action. General Wallace has found his position so 
hampered and uncomfortable that he has asked leave 
of absence, and gone home to the United States, and 
it is hoped by Americans in Turkey that, under his 
representations, our country will adopt a more vigorous 
policy in its dealings with that government. 

The result of my observations and intercourse with 
American missionaries in the East is, that the}' are a 
remarkably choice body of men and women. They 
are in earnest for Christ and his truth ; they are bright, 
strong, scholarly, and have a marked and positive in- 
dividuality, and yet work together in peace. Such 
men as Dr. Riggs, Dr. Bliss, Dr. Woods, Dr. Herrick, 
Dr. Dwight, of the Mission, and President Washburn, 
of Robert College, and Mr. and Mrs. Baldwin, of the 
Brousa, whom I met, and others whose acquaintance I 
did not make, are persons who would make an impres- 
sion and be a power in any community. The world 
cannot now appreciate the work which they are doing. 
After ages will reveal its proportions and beauty. Yet 
these noble workmen have their discouragements. They 
cannot see the hidings of their moral power. A fresh 
eye sometimes sees the significance of facts which a 
familiar eye overlooks. Besides, these missionaries 
have been annoyed by a natural result of their success. 
The native converts, rising from bondage to spiritual 
liberty, like boys making the transition from childhood 
to young manhood, trouble them by knowing very 



TRAVELS ABROAD. I 77 

much, and being very wise, and wanting to have things 
in their own way very much. But these annoyances, 
while inevitable, and sure to come sooner or later, and 
while they have led to much discussion, have now at 
least a temporary rest, under the influence of the inves- 
tigations and the reports in connection with the Amer- 
ican Board last year. Things are moving on smoothly 
now on the surface. There is no doubt there are dif- 
ferent views of policy and wisdom, but the work could 
not have had the characteristics of Protestant Christi- 
anity if there were not. 

While on this journey abroad he wrote the following 
letter to his grandchildren, which is here given a place, 
not only because these same grandchildren take an in- 
terest in this memorial volume, but also because his 
letter shows his interest in them, and his efforts to 
write that which would please them : 

" Paris, France, June 8, 1884. 
" Dear Grandchildren, Blanche, Gertrude, 
Mary and Edson. 

"I put your names down in this order, because I 
think you will get this letter in this order. 

' ' I have seen a great many little children since we 
saw you, but I have seen none that I liked so much as 
you. In fact, I think we have four of the nicest little 
grandchildren in the world, and how glad 3'our grand- 
ma and I shall be to get back and see you. 

"Today is Sunday, and we are in a country where 
we cannot tell what people say. We wanted to go to 
church where a man preaches so that we can under- 
stand him; but just as we were all ready it began to 
rain very hard. We could not go to church, and we 
felt very badly. 



178 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. 

"You can't tell how droll it is to be among people 
and not be able to tell what they say, nor to tell them 
what you want to. Yesterday your grandma and I 
went to ride in an omnibus, to visit a place where 
there was once a great prison, called the Bastile. 
When the man came to collect the fare, I handed him 
what I had been told was the fare. He took it, and 
jabbered away at me something I knew nothing about, 
shook his head, looked at the money, turned it over, 
and reached out his hand for more. I gave him more. 
He shook his head. I gave him more, and that was 
not right, and there was more jabbering. By that 
time all the passengers were looking at me and smiling. 
I then put my hand into my pocket, and took out a 
handful of money and reached it out to him to help 
himself to as much as he wanted. He put back what 
I had given him, and selected some more money, — just 
what was enough, — and by that time all the passengers 
were laughing. * * * * This is one of the trials 
of being with persons you can't talk with. When with 
them, we have to get along with signs. But in two or 
three days we expect to go where people can under- 
stand us. 

" Gertrude and Mary, we were very glad to get your 
letters, with the pictures so pretty on the back of it. 
We are glad to know that you all pray for us every day, 
as we do for you, and we hope the dear Savior will enable 
us to go home soon, and find you all well, and the same 
dear, good little children. 

" Your loving grandpa, 

"I. E. DwiNELL." 

Another letter, written later from his old home to a 
grandchild, is inserted here, although not connected 



TRAVELS ABROAD. 1 79 

with his foreign travels. It was written for her ninth 
birthday, when he was in his sixty-ninth year. 

" Dear Mary : 

1 ' Nine wishes for my dear granddaughter. A pyra- 
mid of character. 

9 
Health 

Happiness 

Politeness 

Gentleness 

Kindness 

Usefulness 

Obedience 

Truthfulness 

Goodness 



69 



" Yours, 69 to 



In that birthday budget was a letter from her grand- 
mother, that introduces another of the grandchildren. 

' ' I have been thinking of you tonight, when you 
was a little baby just like your little cousin Lily Cla- 
rissa. It doesn't seem long since then. Again, I look 
forward nine years. When baby Lily is nine, how old 
will Mary be? I don't quite like to look so far on. 
There may be a great many changes in that time. 

" I do not ask to see the distant scene ; 
One step enough for me." 

In the summer of 1889, Dr. and Mrs. Dwinell visited 
the Hawaiian Islands, enjoying for several weeks de- 
lightful fellowship with friends, new and old, in the 
Island Kingdom. Dr. Dwinell supplied the pulpit of 



l8o ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. 

the Union Congregational Church during the vacation 
of his esteemed friend, Rev. B. G. Beckwith, D.D., 
the pastor of the church. During this visit occurred 
an armed rebellion, which aimed at the overthrow of 
the government of King Kalakaua. In these events 
Dr. Dwinell took a deep interest. He wrote two let- 
ters to the Evening Bulletin, of San Francisco, in 
which he vividly described and commented upon the 
exciting scenes. In the weekly prayer meeting of the 
church to which he was temporarily ministering, he 
paid beautiful tribute to the Christian influences that 
have given vigor and vitality to the civil institutions 
of Hawaii. " Christianity," he said, " creates in the 
community, far beyond the circle of i ! s professed sub- 
jects, civic virtue and integrity — men of principle and 
patriotism, ready to spring into the breach and meet 
any public danger at the peril of their lives. In Chris- 
tian communities, only a part of Christianity is in the 
acknowledged disciples. A large part has floated off, 
without visible connections, into the humanities, the 
integrities, the loyalties to the things social and politi- 
cal of the public at large. It is this emanation from 
Christianity which makes all the difference between 
the social and civic atmosphere of a Christian land and 
of a pagan land. The events of Tuesday show very 
clearly what an inlay of solid political worth Christian- 
ity, with its associate forces, has put into this land 
[Hawaii]. While it carries with it elements which 
wickedness may appropriate and use, as in this case, 
it also carries with it the means for the speedy expul- 
sion of the mischief. * * * * 

"While good men must lament the occurrence [of 
the day before], they may well take courage from the 
reflection that the civil and political system that has 



TRAVELS ABROAD. 181 

sprung up on these Islands is not a football, to be 
played with by political adventurers, but has substan- 
tial and abiding foundations in the virtue of the people. ' ' 
His observations, of which these are extracts, were 
so well received, that he was requested to commit them 
to writing that they might be published. They ap- 
peared in The Friend of Honolulu. 

In whatever land Dr. D win ell traveled, he took a deep 
interest in all that affected the well-being of the people. 
In the Orient, on the continent of Europe, in Great 
Britain, and in the Hawaiian Islands, he entered at 
once and without reserve into liveliest sympathy with 
all the moral and religious forces that are working out 
under God the renovation of societ}^, and the elevation 
of individual lives. He loved travel, but he loved 
more that wider fellowship with noble souls in all lands 
to which travel introduced him. 

He was thoroughly American, but it was Christian 
America holding forth the Word of Life, — liberty- 
loving America enlightening the world, — which in his 
eyes gave to the Stars and Stripes their supreme 
beauty. Wherever, therefore, he met those who were 
endeavoring to make other lands Christian and liberty- 
loving, there he felt at home, and ever after took them 
and their work into the inner sanctuary of his heart. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

PROFESSORSHIP AT OAKLAND. 

Having begun his life of service as a teacher of youth 
in public and private schools, it was fitting that he 
should be found at its close a teacher of teachers. 

Thirty-five years had intervened since he left the 
teacher's desk, when he was inducted into the. chair of 
Homiletics and Pastoral Theolog}- in the Pacific Theo- 
logical Seminar}'. Here, delightfully to himself, and 
with great acceptance to his pupils, he passed his last 
years of earthly life. 

Associated with him in the faculty were his personal 
friends and fellow-laborers through a score of years, 
Revs. Joseph A. Benton, D.D., and George Mooar, 
D.D. Both of these his brethren had been identified 
with the Seminary from its very inception, and to both 
the Institution owes a debt of gratitude for labors and 
sacrifices of inestimable value. 

Prof. Benton, after unremitting and absorbing ser- 
vice, the memory of which will abide in the churches 
of California, entered upon his heavenly reward April 
8, 1892, having been for twenty-two years a Professor 
in the Seminary. 

Prof. Mooar, leaving the pastorate of the First Con- 
gregational Church in Oakland, in 1870, entered at 
once the professorship of Theology in this youthful in- 
stitution, where — a survivor of his associates, Benton 
and Dwinell — he continues to give to the Institution 



184 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. 

the wealth of a large mind and the counsel of a wise 
judgment. For six years these three brethren stood in 
very close relation to each other, not only in their work 
of instruction, but also in their connection with Plym- 
outh Avenue Church, of which all were members, Dr. 
Mooar being pastor, and in other religious and literary 
associations. 

On Seminary Hill, facing the School of the Prophets, 
Prof. Dwinell built, less than three years before his 
death, his last earthly home. It was in all respects an 
attractive place. Within, children and grandchildren, 
coming from their scattered homes, found warm wel- 
come. Students, during those years, will never forget 
how quickly they were made to feel at home within 
those hospitable walls, and all friends coming thither 
realized that here was used ' ' hospitality without 
grudging. ' ' 

Without there was the charm of flowers ; but rarer 
than these was the unexcelled panorama of hill and 
plain, of cities near and far, of bay and Golden Gate, 
between whose pillared sides flow in and out the waters 
of the great Pacific. 

No vision from the heights of Nebo could have 
charmed the leader of God's people more than the out- 
look from this home on the hill charmed him who was 
ere long to pass over Jordan to possess the land 

"Where shines undimm'd one blissful day." 

Here, if anywhere, one might dream. Here the poet 
might derive inspiration, for from the study windows 
in the second story the view was unbroken toward 
East and South and West ; but Prof. Dwinell was a 
worker not a dreamer. He was not a poet, and yet one 
little waif, bearing date 1882, has been found among 



PROFESSORSHIP AT OAKLAND. 1 85 

his papers, which shows that there was in his mind a 
poetic vein almost wholly undeveloped. 

These lines were written while recovering from 'ill- 
ness, at the home of his daughter, Mrs. Wilcox, who 
at that time resided in. Redwood : 

" My little birdie coming wild from hill 
Or vale, and eating crumbs out of this hand, 
Extended pale and sickly from my room, — 
With glance deep-peering into friendly eyes I 
I love the confidence which now I see 
Doth reign, back of the violence of man, 
Between thy heart and mine, a sign of what 
Once was, before the sin of man sent woe 
And distrust through the earth ; a prophecy 
Of what shall be, because the blood of Christ 
Shall wash away that sin and all its wails. 
Come, preacher of good will and peace, across 
The chasm 'tween thee and thine and human kind !'. 
Proclaim the readiness to forget, upon 
Your side, the injuries of ages ! Avow 
The bonds of kindred, springing not by long 
And slow descents from some ignobler source 
Of earth, discovered after patient search, 
But coming fresh, as it hath pleased Him 
Out from the hand of the Eternal One." 
Redwood, July 10, 1882. 

As a teacher, it was Prof. Dwinell's habit to draw 
out from his class their own ideas. This done, he 
would correct misapprehensions, suggest improve- 
ments, criticise kindly, and conclude with valuable 
instructions. 

Thus, if the subject was "Preaching Without 
Notes," he would give out the subject a day before- 
hand. At the recitation, he would call upon one to 
read his plan. This would be followed by criticisms of 
the plan by each one in the class, his own criticism and 
13 



1 86 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. 

instruction concluding the exercise. The result was 
to stimulate independent thought. In his hands it was 
a fertile method. 

His work in the department of Elocution was of 
great importance. Once a month he provided for public 
exercises, consisting of declamations, debates, sermons, 
etc. A critic from outside the Seminary was appointed 
to pass upon points made. He made much of these ex- 
ercises, and they were looked forward to with great 
interest by students and their friends. 

He made but little if an}^ use of text-books. In 
Homiletics, he referred to such authors as Vinet, 
Phelps, Broadus, etc. He urged the students to read 
widely, but he sought especially that all should gather 
what they could by reflection. 

He expected from the Seniors one written sermon a 
month. This he first read privately, and marked pas- 
sages to which he wished to call attention. He then 
read over the sermon with the writer, offering his com- 
mendations and criticisms. 

Sometimes he would give out a text for a sermon, 
and ask the pupils to study it but write nothing down, 
and the following day expect an outline on the plan to 
be given before the class by each one. Aside from 
more ordinary subjects, he would give out such topics 
as, "A Drunkard's Funeral," or, "The Reception of 
Young People into the Church." 

He gave students practice in reading aloud from the 
Bible. The fortieth Psalm illustrates the kind of pas- 
sages to be read. Various hymns were also read aloud, 
for his criticism on the reading. 

In Pastoral Theology, a similar course was adopted. 
He would ask from a class their ideas on various sub- 
jects, such as the Sunday School, funerals, or the prayer 



PROFESSORSHIP AT OAKLAND. 1 87 

meeting, and near the close of the hour give his own 
suggestions on the subject. 

The classes were not large, and some of the students 
required instruction in studies outside the curriculum 
of the Seminary, but he gave to each from the wealth 
of his richly stored mind all the devotion of a divinely 
enkindled heart, all the patience and persistence of a 
great soul. He knew how to communicate instruction, 
and how to lead out of narrow self, and up into the 
higher realm of mental freedom and reverent investi- 
gation, those that were on the way to the gospel min- 
istry. His instruction brought those whom he taught 
nearer to the Great Preacher. The Bible was seen to 
be full of sermons by Jesus, by Paul, by prophets, 
whose methods of discourse, as well as themes, became 
models for the preacher of today. 

His position made him a critic of his pupils, but he 
was a kind critic. With clearness of vision, he quickly 
saw the excellencies and defects of the initial efforts 
of the young men, and with rare tact he was able to 
call the attention of the writers to what they lacked, 
while not withholding praise. In this he was not un- 
like Prof. Phelps — a recognized master of criticism. 

Concerning these six } T ears of instruction, Prof. Ben- 
ton has written : ' ' To this work he gave himself with 
ardor and energy, and with great personal enjoyment ; 
and, of course, to the full satisfaction of the officers of 
the Seminary, and the finest advantage of its pupils ; 
to say nothing of their esteem and admiration, since 
he brought to them knowledge, experience, character, 
wisdom, and the uplift of a great nature." 

Prof. Dwinell impressed all his pupils as a friend. 
He was always accessible to them, and gave much vol- 
untary help to all who needed it, and wise counsel to 



1 88 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. 

all who sought it. In this, of course, he was not alone. 
All of the Faculty shared in this helpful service of a 
paternal character, and each will live in the hearts of 
many whom he has befriended, encouraged and wisely 
guided. 

Words of testimony from those who have been his 
students, show that not only while students in the 
Seminary, ^but also, when as pastors perplexities sur- 
rounded them, they sought, obtained and appreciated 
his help and sympathy. 

" I owe it very largely to Dr. Dwinell that I am in 
the Gospel ministry, for, when nearly discouraged by a 
sense of personal unfitness, I was considering some 
other calling, his kind words of sympathy and advice 
heartened me again, and I entered the Seminary. I 
owe a great debt of gratitude to the sainted man." 

" Worcester, Mass. Rev. Leon D. Bliss." 

" I cannot tell, but you can appreciate, how much I 
have been helped by his life. His memory will be a 
call upward to hundreds and thousands. " 

"Clayton. Rev. Kdson Dwinell Hale." 

"Dr. Dwinell was as a father to me — he was so good 
and kind. I could go to him when in difficulty, feeling 
assured that I could get help. I went many a time, 
and always received counsel, strength and aid — yes, 
much comfort. Only a few weeks ago I sent him an 
article to criticise, and his criticism was so kind and 
his remarks so good that it was a treasure to me in- 
deed. Later, I asked for advice about certain church 
matters, and in his reply there was manifested the 
same generous spirit of true heartedness and superior 
wisdom. 

"Sebastopol, Cal. Rev. William Rogers." 



PROFESSORSHIP AT OAKLAND. 1 89 

" Dr. Dwinell made the impression upon his pupils 
that he was a deep student ; yet he always informed 
them that he was a learner. He taught the students 
to rely upon their own resources, and to keep high 
ideas before them. 

"He was master of every subject he undertook to 
teach. It was a great treat to have him as a teacher. 
He was a great help to me in my studies. He was 
clear and simple in statement. He was patient and 
thorough with us all. I shall look back to the days 
and months that I spent in his class-room with great 
joy and thankfulness. 

' ' He was quick to discern the progress of his students, 
and had a personal interest in and sympathy with his 
students. He used to visit their rooms, to talk and 
pray with them. Personally, I am very greatly in- 
debted to him. There was a time when, if it had not 
been for him, I should have had to leave the Semin- 
ary. He and his family have shown me great kind- 
ness from time to time. 

" Alameda. Rev. Wm. N. Huffman." 

While devoting himself to the duties of the profes- 
sorship, Dr. Dwinell entered heartily into religious 
work, especially in connection with Plymouth Avenue 
Church, of which he became a member. 

In the Sunday School he taught a class of young 
men connected with the Hopkins Academy. In the 
weekly prayer-meeting he took an active part, and in 
whatever affected the welfare of the church he was 
always interested. He enjoyed attendance upon meet- 
ings of the " Monday Club " of Congregational minis- 
ters, held weekly in San Francisco, and of the " Con- 
gregational Club, ' ' whose observance of ' ' Forefathers' 



190 ISRAEL KDSON DWINELL. 

Day," by addresses and social festivities, had his 
warmest sympathy. Several of his most scholarly and 
valuable addresses were prepared for these occasions. 

He was a member, also, of " The Berkeley Club," 
composed of literary gentlemen in professional and 
business life, who met semi-monthly for discussion of 
high themes. Here, whatever gauntlet might be 
thrown down by any from whom Dr. Dwinell differed, 
he never feared to take it up, and the lance he han- 
dled was always sturdily and skillfully wielded in behalf 
of whatever his intellect and heart approved as truth. 

In Oakland, as in Sacramento, he was often called to 
participate in Councils of ordination, in services of 
dedication, and to preach on these or other special oc- 
casions. He took an active interest in efforts to secure 
Sabbath observance, to suppress the saloon, and to 
promote good local government. 

He wrote much for the religious press, and not in- 
frequently prepared articles for the Bibliotlieca Sacra. 

In addition to all this, he seemed to be in the out- 
skirts of the parish that had claimed his zealous care 
for twenty years. Former Sacramentans abound in 
Oakland, in San Francisco, and throughout the State. 
Repeated calls were made upon him, while in Oakland, 
to officiate at marriages and baptisms, and to attend 
funerals in the families of former parishioners and fel- 
low-citizens. Whenever possible he responded to the 
call, especially when the shadows crossed the thresh- 
olds of those among whom he had labored in the past. 
Cottage and palace alike, could their walls talk, might 
speak of his faithful counsels and words of Christian 
sympathy. 

This large constituency scattered throughout the 
State had its counterpart in New England, Salem and 



PROFESSORSHIP AT OAKLAND. 191 

Sacramento, forming the two centers of an ellipse 
within which the influence of Dr. Dwinell lived in 
hearts whom he had blessed and comforted. 

This influence of Dr. Dwinell, so tenacious and far- 
reaching, was altogether beneficent. Because to so 
many wh :> knew him it has proved a benign influence, 
it has been to the writer of this memorial not onry a 
loving service of personal affection, but also a joyful 
Christian service, to help perpetuate that influence 
among his fellow men, and especially among the young 
men of this generation. It is not death to die at the 
close of a life like this. 

" When a good man dies, 

For years beyond our ken, 
The light he leaves behind him, 
Lies upon the paths of men." 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

CLOSE OF LIFE. 

On the 12th of May, the Seminary year closed. On 
that and the preceding day Dr. Dwinell conducted 
the examinations in his own department, was present 
at the examinations by the other professors, attended 
a meeting of trustees, offered the prayer at the An- 
niversary exercises, and was present at a reception 
tendered to the students and their friends at the resi- 
dence of Prof. Benton. In addition to this, in con- 
junction with Mrs. Dwinell, he entertained friends 
most hospitably at his own pleasant home. 

All this, at the close of a busy and laborious year, 
made the vacation look very attractive to him. Within 
a few days Mr. and Mrs. Dwinell went to the home of 
their daughter, Mrs. Jewett, near Vacaville, for needed 
rest and recreation. It was rarely the case that Dr. 
Dwinell did not plan for vacation work, in the wa}^ of 
special reading or writing upon some vital topics upper- 
most in his mind, but on this occasion his watchword 
seemed to be rest. The warm sunshine, the vineclad 
porch, the burdened fruit trees, the nodding grain, the 
quiet drives, were peculiarly attractive to him. He 
undertook no study, he read less than usual, he went 
in and o .t of that home for a few brief days unburdened 
by care, except for the loved ones about him. 

On Sunday evening, May 18th, there came into this 
home to bless the hearts of parents and grandparents 



194 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. 

little Rebekah, his ninth grandchild. One after another, 
these grandchildren had received the seal of baptism at 
his hand. But so closely followed the time of his de- 
parture upon the coming of this little child, that he 
did not perform for her this service. Very tended y, 
however, did he take the infant of days from her grand- 
mother and namesake on one occasion, and hold her 
in his arms, his countenance all aglow as he talked to 
her, and caused her to smile. The scene, which attracted 
the attention of that home circle at the time, recalls 
the entry which he made in his journal when little 
Rebekah 's mother was born : "I find that I am dis- 
posed to love her at once, The affection does not wait 
to grow, as in the case of our little Eddie, but pours 
forth in full strength at once. " 

On Thursday, the 22nd of May, Dr. and Mrs. Dwi- 
nell went to Oakland, expecting to return to Vacaville 
in a few days for further rest and enjoyment. But the 
rest he sought was soon to be found in the Heavenly 
Home, and the enjoyment entered upon that which is 
eternal. 

The two weeks that followed wrought swiftly their 
great work. 

Reference has been made in these pages to Mills 
College and Seminary. At this time, the institution 
was just emerging from troubles that had claimed the 
deepest solicitude of its Board of Trustees, and at- 
tracted wide-spread public attention. The crisis had 
scarcely passed, when Commencement Day arrived. 
Dr. Dwinell had not the strength to meet the excite- 
ments and burdens incident to the position of trustee 
at that time. Yet so deep was his interest in the in- 
stitution, that he gave no thought to his own strength 
in his service of the college. Many duties, some of 



CLOSE OF LIFE. 1 95 

them taxing him to the utmost, claimed his closest at- 
tention. 

In the presence of a large audience he presented 
diplomas to the graduates, and briefly and beautifully 
addressed them. 

On his way home he stopped at the office of his 
son-in-law, Dr. Wilcox, and asked for an examination 
of the action of his heart. This was found to be very 
rapid and very weak. Absolute rest was insisted up- 
on, and an early return to Vacaville was urged ; but 
other and exhausting labors were requested of him in 
connection with the college difficulties, and he com- 
plied, when he should have been entirely free from all 
excitement. 

But the time had come when the earthly service was 
about to be exchanged for the higher service that 
awaits the saints. . 

On Friday morning he felt too weak to rise. Soon 
the enfeebled heart began to labor in vain to renew 
the life currents that were ebbing. Congested lungs 
added to the complications. A struggle for breath, 
which grew in intensity, began. The agonies of the 
conflict gave token of what the result must be. 

The week that intervened between his yielding to 
the force of the disease and his death, displayed the 
consummation of his gentleness, heroism and faith. 
Although in mortal agony himself he never, for a mo- 
ment, forgot the comfort of those about him. He 
talked of the coming change with her whose love, ten- 
der and strong, had enveloped him as an atmosphere, 
and ministered to her grief by his own courageous 
faith. He had a word of grateful appreciation for 
every service rendered by all who were about him. 
He sent messages of affection to the absent. He noted 



I96 ISRAKL BDSON DWINELL. 

the singing of the birds. When, on account of his 
struggle for breath, his bed was moved near the bay 
window of his chamber (adjoining the front room, 
which was his study), he looked out upon the eastern 
hills toward Piedmont, and exclaimed in broken sen- 
tences, " Beautiful hills ! beautiful hills ! I will lift up 
mine eyes unto the hills — not these hills, but those of 
which these are emblematic." 

Morning and evening, as was their wont, the family 
gathered with him for household worship. The pas- 
sages familiar to him, in Hebrew or Greek as well as 
in English, were not only his comfort, but also used by 
him for the comfort of those about him. In all his 
distress he held fast to Him in whom he believed, and 
by whom he was girded for the last conflict. 

On Saturday morning, the 7th of June, the conflict 
ended. For those who had ministered to him with 
sleepless devotion, and for her whom sickness had de- 
prived of the sweet solace of sharing these vigils, it 
was an hour of grief, sweetened with blessed memories 
and all the comforts that such a triumph of faith in a 
risen Lord could give. To him it was the hour of re- 
lease and victory. 

In that last week of suffering there had been erected 
in his sick chamber the triumphal arch of the Christian 
victor, through which this pure and lofty soul passed, 
with the majesty of a Christian conqueror, on his way 
to the capital of his Master's kingdom. On the after- 
noon of Monday, the 9th of June, simple funeral ser- 
vices were held in the home. Rev. B.C. Oakley, pas- 
tor of Plymouth Avenue Church, read passages of 
Scripture. Rev. Samuel H. Willey, D.D., paid lov- 
ing tribute to his life-long friend. ProLGeorge Mooar, 
D. D., one of Dr. Dwinell's co-laborers in the Semi- 



CLOSE OF LIFE. I 97 

nary, tenderly commended the living to the God of all 
comfort. Representatives of the Boards of Trust of 
the Pacific Seminar}' and Mills College, and represent- 
atives of the Berkeley Club, of which he was a mem- 
ber, were his pall bearers. His body rests in Moun- 
tain View Cemetery at Oakland. His grave is marked 
by a simple massive monument, on which this inscrip- 
tion briefly tells the passer-by who and what sort of a 
man he was : 

ISRAEL E. DWIXELL. 

East Calais, Vt., October 24, 1820. 

Oakland, Cal., June 7, 1890. 



2 timothy, 4:7. 

I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, 
I have kept the faith. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

GENEALOGY. 

i. Michael Duniiel, b. France, d. Topsfield, Mass., 
1717. 

2. Thomas Doenell, (written also Dwennel and Dwo- 

nillj the fourth of nine children, b. 1672, m. 
Dinah Brimsdell of Lynn, d. Topsfield, 1747. 

3. Jonathan Dunnell, eldest of nine children, b. June, 

1702, m. Mehitable Kennay, d. Millbur}^, Mass., 
1782. 

4. Archelaus Dwinel, the fourth of eleven children, 

b. Topsfield, 1731, m. Martha Perkins, d. (in 
French and Indian War) Nov. 13, 1758, aged 27. 

5. Archelaus Dwinel, Jr., eldest of three children, b. 

Boxford, 1754, m. Olive Hall, daughter of Dea- 
con Willis Hall, of Sutton, d. Marshfield, Vt. 
He was a soldier under Washington. 

6. Israel Dwinell, third of six children, b. Croyden, 

N. H., Oct. 8, 1789, m. April 1, 1813, Phila 
Gilman, of Marshfield, Vt. She died June 1, 
1864. He died Feb. 20, 1874. 

7. Their children: 

Alcander resides in Brooklyn, N. Y. 

Ira S. resides East Calais, Vt. 

Solon, d. in infancy. 

Israel Edson, b. East Calais, Oct. 24, 1820, m. 
Sept. 12, 1848, at Jonesboro, Tenn., Rebecca 
Eliza Allen Maxwell, daughter of Samuel and 



200 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. 

Hester L (Grear) Maxwell. I. K. D., d. Oak- 
land, Cal., June 7, 1890. 

Albert resides East Calais. 

Melvin,d. Rome, Georgia, Dec. 28, 1887. 

Levi Gilman resides East Calais. 

Phila Jane, m. Rev. John Gardiner Hale ; resides 
Redlands, Cal. 

Nuel Byron, d. East Calais, aged 13. 

Edgar, d. in infancy. 

8. Children of Israel Edson and Rebecca E. Dwinell. 

(1) Edson, b. Salem, Mass., d. Salem. 

(2) Alice Hester, b. Salem, m. at Sacramento, 

Cal., Rev. Henry E. Jewett. 

(3) Jane Rebecca, b. Salem, m. at Sacramento, 

Wilbur J. Wilcox, M.D. 

(4) William, b. Salem, m. at Sacramento, Flor- 

ence, daughter of W. K. and Blanche 
Knight. 

(5) Iyillie, b. Salem, m. at Sacramento, Robert 

H. Hawley, d. Sacramento, Oct. 24, 1885. 

(6) Albert, b. Salem ; d. Salem, 1863. 

9. Grandchildren of Israel Edson and Rebecca E^ 

Dwinell. 
Gertrude Maxwell Jewett. 
Mary Fairbanks Jewett. 
Rebekah Edith Dwinell Jewett. 
Edson Dwinell Wilcox. 
Lee Wilcox, d. in infancy. 
Wilbur J. Wilcox, Jr., d. in infancy. 
Henry Wilcox, d. in infancy. 
Elizabeth (Lily) Clarissa Wilcox. 
Blanche Maxwell Dwinell .. 
Franklin Fairbanks Jewett 



CHAPTER XX. 

' ' APPRECIATED BY OTHERS. ' ' 

' ' I had known him from my boyhood. We were 
born in the same country town, studied together at the 
same Academy and later in the University, where he 
was two years in advance of me. His later life just 
realized the promise of his youth — a boy and youth of 
singular sweetness and purity of character — a born 
gentleman if ever there were one ; of unusual mental 
ability, of untiring diligence and faithfulness in every- 
thing he undertook, a leader in all religious enterprises 
in college, an accomplished writer, happy in debate, 
valuing truth and his convictions all the more that he 
had come to them as the result of patient thought and 
careful discussion, always and everywhere the humble, 
earnest, consecrated Christian. Such was Israel Ed son 
Dwinell, my loved and honored townsman and friend. 

" But why speak of him to you and his bereaved 
kindred ? Only to let you know how warmly he w T as 
appreciated by others. 

"Boston, Mass. Rev. N. G. Clark, D.D. 

Sec'y A. B. C. F. M." 

<c So one more saint has joined the assembly of just 
men made perfect ! You and your children are feeling 
the sharp pangs of separation and bereavement, but 
some of us whose thoughts of him linger about the old 
days of his Salem feebleness feel their hearts swell not 
14 



202 ISRAEL BDSON DWINELL. 

only with memories of his personal kindness and fel- 
lowship, but with gratitude to God for the mercy that 
has spared him all these subsequent years, and given 
him the strength, and enterprise, and endurance of 
body and spirit, to achieve the noble and varied work 
of his well-rounded life. Surely, 3^ou can catch even 
in your grief something of the contagion of grateful 
joy with which others think of him. * * * I 
should like to tell you how mnch his unvarying kind- 
liness and sweetness and manly Christian strength 
were to me in the opening da3^s of my limited ministry 
at Salem. Prof. J. Henry Thayer. 

"Cambridge, Mass." 

" He was my best friend, the last of the three dear- 
est gentlemen friends of my life-time. * * * My 
dearest, longest, truest friend. It seems to me to 
break the strongest link that binds me to life and its 
work. * * * How much you will find in his life 
to make you glad in your grief ! 

" Short Hills, N. J. Rev. A. B. Rich." 

"It is indeed a personal bereavement, and I crave 
the privilege of mingling my tears with yours. He 
was very dear to me ever since I knew him in Salem. 
* * * I have rejoiced in his prosperity, which, 
under God, was his legitimate desert. It was with the 
highest pleasure that my wife and I met him last au- 
tumn, at the meeting of the American Board in N. Y. 
There was the same cordiality of manner, the same 
sweet smile, the same loving spirit that characterized 
our relations to each other so long ago. 

" East Taunton, Mass. Rev. E. W. Aelen." 



" APPRECIATED BY OTHERS. 203 

" We remember with true pleasure the pure life, the 
gentle and considerate friend, the safe counsellor, the 
good man, the loving husband, the affectionate and 
devoted father, the consistent Christian, the faithful 
pastor, the true man in every relation of life. * * * 
God bless and comfort you all. Joseph Allen. 

"Nashville, Tenn." 

" Other men surpassed him as popular orators, but 
very few surpassed him as a clear, logical thinker and 
discriminating writer. And his goodness was even 
greater than his greatness. He always wanted the 
right to prevail, and he wanted to see the right, whether 
in accordance with his previous views or not. * * * 
His honesty led him to investigate and apply what he 
regarded as just principles to the interpretation of 
God's Word. And so, in everything, he sought to be 
just right. Rev. John G. Hale. 

"Redlands, Cal." 

' ' I think his memory will always be an inspiration to 
all who knew him. It was not only his scholarship 
and his goodness that distinguished him, but that lov- 
ableness and sympathy which made him the friend of 
all he met. * * * I think he must be one of the 
* Angels excelling in strength.' 

" Redlands, Cal. Miss Mary G. Hale." 

' ' His life, so noble, so good, so full of love and faith, 
will still bless all who have felt its influence. What 
blessed comfort there is for you, even in the depths of 
your loneliness and sorrow. Mrs. J. F. Ellis. 

" Forest Grove, Oregon." 



204 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. 

1 ' He has rounded out to three-score years a most 
useful life, and has gone to rest in the fullness of his 
powers, his usefulness and his fame. * * * Why 
should I not say, except in sympathy with your sorrow 
and bereavement, as Dr. Riggs did when he heard of 
my father-in-law's death, ' I congratulate him ! ' 

"Marsoovan, Turkey. Rev. Geo. F. Herrick. " 

' ' Please count Mrs. Hammond and myself among 
the sincere mourners for your husband. Never before 
in our lives were we so strongly attached on so short 
an acquaintance as to you and your husband. * * * 
Accept our heartfelt sympathies. 

" Evanston, 111. Mr. & Mrs. H. L. Hammond." 

' ' I laved to walk and talk with him — to feel the in- 
fluence of the spirit which he breathed. I loved to 
hear him preach. The peculiar quality and flavor of 
his sermons were grateful to me. * * * I know 
from some friends in the First Presbyterian Church 
how they enjoyed and valued his sermons and his 
presence among them. Rev. Wm. H. Kirk. 

"Orange, N. J." 

" I presume that gold piece which he gave me the 
day I left Oakland was the last gift he gave. I trust it 
may be sacred to the Lord and bring his special bless- 
ing. Mrs. A. S. Steele. 

"Steele Home, Chattanooga, Tenn." 

"I never failed to enjoy richly his rare truth of char- 
acter, his ample, varied and growing powers, his quick, 
clear insight into the meaning and drift of religious 
events, his broad views, his appreciation of persons 



''appreciated by others." 205 

and characters, and his unswerving pursuit of the ends 
of truth and righteousness. 

"Grinnell, Iowa. Rev. Geo. F. Magoon, D.D." 

" I loved him tenderly as I believe everybody did 
who knew him well. I cannot tell you how dear he 
was to me. There is no brother minister, anywhere, 
with whom I have found myself in closer sympathy 
than with my dear brother Dwinell. His rare culture 
and his beautiful spirit were wondrously winning to 
me, and his fidelity to duty was always an inspiration. 
I have never known any man whose teaching and 
whose example I could more confidently follow. 
Almost an ideal Christian brother he has seemed to me. 
* * * I think of his and your visit in Honolulu 
last summer with exceeding pleasure, and I count it 
one of the rare privileges of my pastoral life to have 
had those few weeks of his pulpit ministrations. 
Every sermon gave one new admiration for him and 
drew me toward him with increasing love. 

' ' He will never be forgotten by the good people 
here, among whom he left only the most delightful 
memories. Rev. E. G. Beck with, D.D. 

" Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands." 

"We shall miss his influence and his pen, which 
were always wielded as I think on the right side of the 
great issues of the day. * * * You do not weep 
alone. I am sure all your husband's ministerial 
brethren and a multitude of Christian friends mourn his 
loss with you, for he was universally beloved and 
respected. Rev. J. C.Holbrook, D.D. 

''Stockton, Cal." 



206 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. 

" It is our privilege to have known him, and mine 
to have spent many hours in conipan}^ with him and 
yourself in your delightful home on the hill. I will 
ever remember the delightful conversations of these 
visits. Rev. Isaac Pierson. 

"Missionary in China." 

"Massachusetts feels California's loss. * * * 
To your beloved husband came the inspiration and the 
opportunity to say the bravest and most touching word 
uttered in all that great meeting at Springfield. I felt 
then and feel now that the Holy Spirit put special hon- 
or on him. Rev. Ewing O. Tade. 

"Hast Granville, Mass." 

' ' I beg to express my deep sympathy for you and 
yours in the sudden and severe bereavement brought 
upon 3^ou by the unanticipated death of Dr. Dwinell. 
* * * Having enjoyed for many years an acquaint- 
ance with the Doctor, you may realize the gratification 
I should have in seeing his kindly face again, but 
which may not be. * * * Mrs. Hopkins joins me 
in feelings of sympathy and sorrow. 

"San Francisco. Moses Hopkins." 

' ' Your departed husband lived a life of unusual use- 
fulness, and exerted an influence for good that will 
abide. I am thankful it was my privilege to know 
him so long and so well, and to be associated with him 
in the Institution to which he gave his last years of 
toil. James M. Haven. 

" San Francisco. " 

1 ' The comfort is deep that comes from the assurance 
that the glorified drop their anxieties and fears, while 



APPRECIATED BY OTHERS. 207 

they may retain all their interest in the subjects of 
their earthly labors and solicitudes. * * * Please 
accept our sincerest sympathy. 

" Vacaville. Rev. Henry W.Jones." 

' ' With prayer and sympathy I greet you in the 
sacred fellowship of suffering. 

" Only a few months ago your beloved sent me 
gracious words of comfort in my trial hour. May the 
everlasting arms sustain you ! 

" Los Angeles. Rev. R. G. Hutch ins, D.D." 

' ' You have lost a precious husband ; the church and 
country a most efficient and faithful leader, but heaven 
is richer for such an one! Mrs. C. L. Gooddele. 

"Boston." 

' ' You are comforted as but few can be, in knowing 
how fully the whole church of God mourns with you. 
The loss is great, but his works do follow and will. * 

* * It was so much to take : yes, but was it not 
also much to give? And the Lord took. He also 
gave, and evermore will you bless His name for so 
great a gift. Mrs. Horace Fairbanks. 

"St. Johnsbury, Vt." 

' ' The benediction which he always left whenever 
we met can never cease to be ours, for death does not 
take our real things from us. * * * Through your 
tears you can smile over the triumphs of faith your 
eyes have seen, and you rejoice in the victory won — 
the entrance into those halls ' conjubilant with song.' 
Mrs. Franklin Fairbanks. 

"St. Johnsbury, Vt." 



208 ISRAEL BDSON DWINELL. 

" It seemed to ine that he was a man who walked 
with God, who was governed by high and noble mo- 
tives, and whose very presence was an inspiration to 
all that was pure and lovely and of good report. 

"San Francisco. Mrs. W. C. Pond." 

" It is so mysterious that one so good and so useful 
should be removed. The Seminary has received a 
great blow, and met with a heavy loss. 

"Oakland. Mrs. J. K. McLean." 

' ' We all thank God for the precious legacy your 
dear husband has left to the church and the world, the 
record of his grand, noble life. * * * There is a 
very keen sense of loss and disappointment, that he 
should be taken from the work that needed him so 
much, but God knows best. 

"San Francisco. Mrs. J. H. Warren." 

' ' God will be very near to you into the light of 
whose presence your sainted husband has entered. 
' ' Lowell, Mass. Miss Lucy Fay. ' ' 

<< * * * Your beloved husband, honored, revered, 
loved by every one, full of usefulness to the Church of 
God and to his family, is laid away. * * * May 
the Lord sustain you. Mrs. S. S. Smith. 

" San Francisco." 

' ' Grand, seems the term to apply to him in personal 
appearance, ability, purity, nobility, and loveliness of 
character. * * * It will help us to know he as- 
sisted to dedicate our building, and to form the society. 

' ' Gait, Cal. Dr. and Mrs. O. Harvey. ' ' 



" APPRECIATED BY OTHERS." 209 

' ' The news of the death of your husband was 
received with deep regret by the members of Grace 
Congregational Church of this place, and we condole 
with you most sincerely on the sad event. If the 
sympathy of friends can be any consolation under the 
trying circumstances, be assured that we all share in 
your sorrow for his loss. * * * 

Helen A. Steinmetz, Sec'y- 

" Mission San Jose, Cal. " 

" His kindness to me will never be forgotten. 

" Lordsburg, N. M. Charles W. Wilcox." 

"Many of his kind words of advice and counsel, 
given to us young people at the weekly prayer-meet- 
ings in the chapel will be remembered as long as I live. 

"Oakland. Arthur P. Alexander." 

" My brother, I know, received much help and 
blessing from him, as did many other young men who 
have gone forth girded and strengthened by his teach- 
ing to preach the Word. Just the last day Dr. Dwi- 
nell was out he met Mr. G., and asked him among the 
last things 4 to give Mr. Dor ward his love when we 
write, ' and I am sure my brother will find much com- 
fort in the message. Mrs. S. C. Goddard. 

"Oakland." 

Among the parishioners of Dr. Dwinell for several 
years was one who, for a season, was a member of his 
church, and who, after a course of study at the Pacific 
Seminary, became minister of the Unitarian Society of 
Sacramento. 

Upon the death of Dr. Dwinell, this pastor, Rev. C. 



2IO ISRAEL KDSON DWINKLL. 

P. Massey, Jr. , delivered to his congregation a memo- 
rial discourse, full of tender reminiscence and loving 
appreciation, which he entitled "A Tribute of Friend- 
ship to Character." One extract has appeared else- 
vi here in this Memorial. A few others are gladly given 
a place here. " There are men, " he said. " whom no 
conventions of society, whom no restrictions of party 
or creed, can absolutely constrain, and who, because of 
the firm principles which steady their minds, and of 
the lofty ideals which inspire their souls, become com- 
petent and trusted advisers in all the graver experi- 
ences of life. 

"Such an one was the late Dr. Dwinell, — a man 
whom his church and even his community did not con- 
tain, for the influence of his words went out not only 
up and down this coast, but penetrated to those circles 
of thought in the older communities where scholarship 
discusses the profoundest problems that can engage the 
attention of the human mind. 

" It was soon after my coming to Sacramento that 
I became acquainted with >this gentleman. The ac- 
quaintance ripened during the subsequent years of his 
residence here, and had much to do with the shaping 
of my own after-career. * * * The genius of the 
man, the dignity of his carriage, the charm of his 
scholarship, the righteousness of his purpose — all at- 
tracted me, and I soon began to count as red-letter days 
in my experience those upon which some interview 
was enjoyed, and intimate exchange was had of the 
thoughts nearest our souls. * * * Whatever his 
theology was, we knew we could trust him ; that his 
word was his bond ; that the friend who needed his as- 
sistance he would not desert ; that his life was pure 
and high, and that the influence of it went out to make 



APPRECIATED BY OTHERS. 211 

first his household, and then his church, and then his 
city, better for his presence. 

' ' The key-note of his character was heavenly faith- 
fulness, and it covered all the landscape of his home 
life, as well as his public life, with moral and spiritual 
bloom. He was a man of calm and tranquil mien, 
with that high-bred courtesy which always shows it- 
self in quiet dignity of speech and bearing. He had a 
kind and sympathetic nature, and possessed in abun- 
dant measure those rare graces that naturally grow in 
the soil of such a heart. He was as true as steel, and 
his simple word was equivalent to the most solemn 
vow. He was a teacher and preacher of truth and 
righteousness, not only in word, but in deed. His 
whole life was one of fragrant beauty, love and service; 
and as the sunset came, and the twilight dropped 
down, it was but the harbinger of a bright coming 
morning — the prophecy of a fast-approaching dawn. 
To this saintly soul that had reached its three-score 
and ten years there had come no withering nor blight; 
but only richness and ripeness. He was translated in 
the plentitude of his powers. It was life's insensible 
completeness, not a dwarfing of nature, but its perfec- 
tion ; not a fading, but are-flourishing. What wonder 
that the autumnal glories were decked with a smile of 
welcome, and the solemn rustle was full of heavenly 
music ! * * * " 

" Let us thank God for the sacred testimony of such 
a life — a life that reveals the celestial, the realm of 
perfect bliss, the land of everlasting joy ! " 

" Death to such is transition. Hope fledges for flight, 
Love bursts into transport, Faith swells into sight ; 
Prayer glides into rapture, all sighing shall cease ; 
And Patience shall melt to a radiance of peace. 
"San Francisco. Mrs.. Sarah B. Cooper." 



212 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. 

11 During the twenty years in which he was pastor of 
the First Congregational Church of Sacramento, his 
life was a noble record of duty carefully and lovingly 
done, of wise teaching of the truth, simple and strong, 
told with dignity, eloquence and fervor. * * * 
Never, during the years of Dr. Dwinell's pastorate, did 
he fail to give rich, strong mental and spiritual food to 
those who came to the Sabbath feast ; none who hun- 
gered and thirsted for meat and drink, for wise and 
spiritual counsel, for Christian help and uplifting, ever 
went away unsatisfied, or with the vague, restless feel- 
ing that they had not found what they craved ; but 
were, on the contrary, filled, and that abundantly. * 

* * After all is said, only those who lived under 
Dr. Dwinell's beneficent teaching and widely-dissein- 
inated influence during those years can know how 
perfect was his life in that special sphere of action, how 
large, how full, how faithful was his ministry, how 
complete his forgetfulness of self, his absorption of 
am^thing like a selfish, personal ambition, in the loft}' 
desire to preach God's truth as it was committed to 
him. Miss Carrie Warren. 

" Alameda, Cal." 

' ' His reputation as a scholar, thinker, and writer 
was wider than his own denomination. In fineness of 
temper, breadth and catholicity of judgment, and in 
well-bred courtesy, he was the model of a Christian 
gentleman." San Francisco Daily Bulletin, 

(Editorial). 

1 ' The death of Dr. Dwinell, so long a resident of 
Sacramento, removes one of those thoroughly upright 



" APPRECIATED BY OTHERS." 213 

and pure men whose lives are examples of good, and 
guides to all humanity." 

Sacramento Daily Record-Union, 

(Editorial). 

"His influence was always for good, and when the 
pages of his life are turned, there will be found no spot 
to mar or deface them." 

Sacramento Leader, (Editorial). 

" He was a man singularly beloved and admired." 
Oakland Daily Enquirer, (Editorial). 

From Victoria Institute, London, England. 
' ' Madam : 

' ' I am desired by the Council to express the regret 
with which they have learned of the loss of one of 
this Institute's specially- valued members, Dr. Dwinell, 
the value of whose work in the cause of truth first 
attracted the attention of the Council, and caused them 
to invite him to become a member of this Society. 
Although they may not otherwise intrude, they ven- 
ture to at least join with those who respect and honor 
his memory. 

" I am, Madam, 

" Your obedient servant, 

" Francis Petrie, 
" Honorary Secretary to the Council." 

From Berkley Club, Oakland, Cal. 
" It is widely felt that in the death of Dr. I. E. 
Dwinell California lost a foremost scholar, educator, 
clergyman and citizen, who came to the State twenty- 
seven years ago, already one of the leading men of 



214 ISRAEL BDSON DWINEEE. 

thought in the New England pulpit, and who main- 
tained at our capital city, as well as in his later resi- 
dence at Oakland, that deserved reputation. 

' ' The Berkeley Club has reason to remember him as 
punctual in attendance, courteous and friendly in bear- 
ing; when he opened discussion, as thorough, pains- 
taking, original in conception and in style ; when he 
followed discussion as penetrating to the heart of the 
subjects and suggestive in his comments, always en- 
deavoring to see all themes in the light of their funda- 
mental principles ; though curious and searching as to 
the secondary causes in processes which make the world 
seem a continuous chain, yet reverent and tender in 
the habitual recognition of Him in whom he felt that 
all things have their being ; in communion with whom 
he sought purity of heart, and in whose Redeeming 
I,ove he rested with the peace of a child. 

' ' Recognizing our personal loss in his absence from 
us, we express our sympathy with those who miss him 
in the closer circle and dearer ties of home. 

" George Mooar, 
"Charles Woodbury, 

" Committee." 

" Pacific Theoeogicae Seminary, 

"Oakland, Cal., Sept. 5, 1890. 
" Dear Mrs. Dwineee : 

"At this, the beginning of another session of the 
Seminary, we are about to take up our studies, and, 
in a very peculiar manner, feel the inexpressible loss 
we have sustained in the removal of our late dear Pro- 
fessor Dwinell. 

' ' God has been very kind to the Seminary in sending 
another to take up the work, but that does not lessen 



APPRECIATED BY OTHERS. 215 

our sense of loss, nor fill the place in our hearts which 
he held, not only as a teacher but as a friend. We 
trust that we may honor his memory by carrying out 
those instructions we were privileged to receive from 
his lips, and find in imitating him a greater incentive 
to a more Christ-like, self-denying life. 

' ' And let us express our sympathy with 3^011 in } 7 our 
bereavement, which we feel to be ours also. 

" God alone can wipe the tears from our eyes, heal 
our heart-wounds, and make up to us for our loss, un- 
til the glad day of re-union dawns. This we are per- 
suaded He will do, and so answer our prayers on 3 T our 
behalf. 

Very sincerely yours, 

Robert W. Newlands, 
Chas. Iy. Eby, 
In the name of the Students of the 

Pacific Theological Seminar3 T . 

Resolutions passed by the President and 

Board of Trustees of The Pacific 

Theological Seminary. 

Whereas, Since our meeting in May last, it has 
pleased God, in his infinite wisdom, to remove from 
this life our brother, Rev. Israel E. Dwinell, D.D., a 
member of this Board : 

Resolved, That we put upon record our sincere and 
heartfelt sorrow at his loss : making note of the fact 
that this is the first instance in which a member of 
this Board has been called away by death. 

Resolved, further, That it was through his agency 
in large measure, together with that of others equalty 
interested, that the Pa:ific Theological Seminary was 
planned and established. 



2l6 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. 

Resolved, That as a member of this Board for more 
than twenty years and from its very organization, he 
has been scrupulously attentive to all the interests of 
the institution, active in securing endowments, patient 
and thorough in studying and transacting its business, 
discriminating and careful as to the doctrinal views 
held and taught in the Seminary, unselfish and untir- 
ing in work for it, and at all times hopeful of its 
enlargement, permanence and growing usefulness. 

Resolved, that in remembering the Seminary in his 
will, * he has borne most emphatic testimony to his love 
for the institution, and to his sense of its great impor- 
tance. 

Resolved, That we extend our heartfelt sympathy 
to his bereaved and afflicted family, and assure them 
that we largely share in their sorrow. 

Resolutions passed by the Upper Bay 
Association. 

Resolved, That while recognizing the wisdom and 
love no less than the sovereignty of the great Head of 
the Church, the tidings of the decease of the Rev. Dr. 
I.E. Dwinell fall upon the Association as a great sor- 
row. 

The nobleness of his personal character and the pur- 
ity of his life have endeared him to all who knew him, 
and his acknowledged intellectual and spiritual power, 
as scholar, teacher and orator, has made him beyond 
as well as within his own state and denomination, a 
trusted Christian leader, whose loss will be deeply felt 
throughout the country. 

Resolved, That we respectfully tender to his be- 
reaved family our deepest sympathy. 

* The sum of Ji,ooo.oo for a permanent Library Fund. 



'appreciated by others. 21/ 

Resolutions passed by General Association op 
California, October, 1S90. 

The eminent character, high position, and valuable 
services of the late Dr. Dwinell deserve a Memorial 
prepared with superior care, and put in a permanent 
form. But it is not fitting that the first meeting of 
the General Association of California since his death 
should be dissolved, without putting on record some 
recognition of his worth, especially as he was related 
to our churches. 

He came into our State after he had already gained 
in Massachusetts, by a pastorate of fourteen years, a 
high degree of confidence. At once he took — indeed, 
he had long taken — the interests of these churches in- 
to his heart. His heart was large; his vision of the 
mission and opportunity which the Kingdom of Christ 
has here was large. In his own church at Sacramento 
he was attentive to every detail of his pastoral care. 
Yet, when after tw T enty years of service he resigned 
his charge, it was said not merely that his particular 
congregation was bereaved, but that Sacramento had 
lost its chief citizen. For though our brother was a 
theologian, and of a strenuous type, yet his Christian 
doctrine made him all the more alive to every subject 
that concerns the better life of men. At the same 
time, as befitted his calling, the emphasis of his activ- 
ity was spent along the lines of the denomination with 
which he was connected. He was a Puritan in his 
conception of organized Christianity. Catholic in his 
sympathies, yet he ever stood for the characteristic 
features of our free polity. But his distinctive service 
consisted in strengthening and fastening the ties of 
fellowship, and the last paper from his hand was de- 
15 



2l8 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. 

voted to a careful statement of the principles of that 
fellowship. 

He was ardently and broadly interested in every one 
of the lines of our denominational and missionary 
effort. More than any other one of our California 
ministry was he influential in the general convocations 
of our churches at the East. He represented us in 
most of the National Councils, and on recent notable 
occasions at the sessions of the American Board. 

Among the things which lay most on his heart was 
the Higher Christian Education. At the General As- 
sociation of 1865 he was Chairman of the Committee 
which advised the formation of the Theological Semin- 
ary, and was Chairman of the Committee which drew 
up the original constitution for it, that was adopted 
the following year at Sacramento. He was then made 
a Trustee, and remained such to his death ;- and, 
surely, his fellow Professors and his Students bear 
united testimony to his hallowed devotion as Profes- 
sor during these later, alas, too brief years. But his 
interest in the Higher Education deepened into the 
intense conviction that the Congregational Churches 
should, in some way, establish and endow a college. 
Meanwhile, he had been most faithfully sharing and 
leading in the plans by which Dr. and Mrs. Mills were 
building the college for women that bears their name. 

The services which Dr. Dwinell rendered to these 
causes were the services of a great man. His mind was 
that of a philosopher, which cannot rest till it sees all 
things in their principles. At the same time he had 
the genius of industry and of perseverance, which is 
willing to take minute pains in the gathering of data. 
No matter what subject might be introduced for dis- 
cussion, those who knew him expected that when he 



"appreciated by others." 219 

spoke the subject would be opened from a wider view, 
and in some special illumination. If his doctrinal 
views seemed strenuous, and in these later days have 
been strenuously maintained, yet they were main- 
tained not in the zeal of a partisan, nor even in the 
logical consistency of a mere system, but because, in 
his sight, the very laws of thought and the very life of 
the written Word required it. How admirably he has 
set forth his positions many will remember, who lis- 
tened to his vivid language in public address, and who 
read his lucid papers in the various journals and 
reviews. 

Most of all, we would recall how the gentleness of 
the Divine Love had given him the greatness of char- 
acter, the fine sense of duty, the courtesy of the Chris- 
tian gentleman and brother, the life that is hid with 
Christ in God. 

Geo. Mooar, 

For Committee. 



We leave thee with a trust serene 

Which Time, nor Change, nor Death can move ; 
While with thy childlike faith we lean 

On Him whose dearest name is Love." 

Whittier. 



SERMONS. 



I. 



* CHRISTIANITY A RELIGION OF 
EXPECTANCY. 



[Concerning this sermon, it was said in the Congregationa- 
list } editorially, Nov. 18, 1S75 : "It seems to us as hardly too 
great praise to say of it, that it deserves to go into the per- 
manent literature of the Church, by the side of the late Pres. 
Wayland's famous discourse upon The Moral Dignity of the 
Missionary Enterprise."] 



"For ye are not as yet co7ne to the rest and to the inheritance, 
which the Lordyoitr God giveth you." — Deut. 12 : g. 

The attitude of Christianity is that of expectancy. 
It is not a religion that looks backward. Its standards, 
its ideals, its Golden Age, are not in the past, but in 
the future. This is a peculiarity of revealed religion 
in every age. The patriarch was trained to look into 
the dim distance, to a better time coming. Moses rose 
higher, and saw more distinctly, but his eye was still 
on the future. Isaiah ascended to a higher point of 
outlook, but looked forward. Even Christ, when he 
came and disclosed the nature of his mission, taught 
that it was not his object to lull and satisfy human ex- 
pectations, but to arouse them still more ; and He lift- 
ed a veil disclosing a higher glory in the ages to follow. 
There was nothing in his teachings or life calculated 

*Preached before the General Association of California, at San Francisco, 
Oct. 5, 1875- 



224 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. 

to convey the impression that He regarded that period 
as the consummation of human history, and that there 
was nothing for mankind in the coming age to do but 
to look back to it, and linger under its shadows, lament- 
ing its evanescence, and delaying as long as possible 
its vanishing glo.y. Rather, He himself stood forth a 
greater prophet than all, wand in hand, pointing his 
disciples and the world to a higher future and a nobler 
age. The Evangelists and Apostles in their writings 
catch the same spirit of expectancy and off-look, and 
urge the church to prepare for the full- day splendors 
of the kingdom of God on earth, and the second coming 
of Christ. They hold up, indeed, the earthly, histori- 
cal mission of Jesus as grand ; grand in itself, but far 
more grand as explaining and justifying the higher 
expectations to which it points forward, and for which 
it furnishes the ground. 

This habit of revelation, of leading good people to 
look to the future, not to the past, is a habit that runs 
through its books, and the ages covered by its recitals. 
Adam gazed vaguely forward for an unknown deliv- 
erer ; and the last writer in the Bible, in the last book, 
on the last page, closes the Christian revelation, gaz- 
ing into the future, and saying : " Even so, come, I^ord 
Jesus ' ' ; and yet he had the historical Christ, and the 
great redemption, and the most divinely-seeded epoch 
of history behind him. 

THE SAME IN EVERY AGE. 

The passage which I have selected for my text pre- 
sents the host of God of the remote Mosaic age in this 
attitude. But it is their attitude in every age ; and the 
text will apply to them now as well as then. Taking 
it, then, as a representative text, true of the genius of 



SERMONS. 225 

revealed religion, true of the spirit of Christianity, we 
are reminded in it that the object of pious admiration 
and zeal at the present time is not in the past, but in 
the future ; that our mission as followers of Christ is not 
to recover a vanishing good, but to gird up ourselves, 
and go forward to a coming good ; that Christianity 
has its priceless blessing still before the world, and not 
behind it ; " for ye are not as yet come to the rest and 
to the inheritance, which the Lord your God giveth 
you. " This is language to persons on a march, a great 
host under marching regimen, moving, or expecting 
at any moment to move, out of present quarters on to 
advanced positions, taking with them what they have 
gained by experience, and their goods, and leaving 
what is useless. They may camp at times, and build 
tabernacles, and linger on the way ; but the blessing 
on which they have set their souls is before them, and 
soon comes the summons for a multitudinous move- 
ment, and there is an advance all along the line. Many 
things are thrown away ; but seldom anything valua- 
ble ; seldom anything that is not better left than car- 
ried ; for it is not a retreat, but an advance under a 
divine leader. 

A MISTAKEN OPINION. 

This is, indeed, very different from a common opin- 
ion. Many persons imagine that Christianity is carry- 
ing a standard that points towards the back ages. 
They think it is seeking an object that belongs to the 
past, from which mankind are slowly retreating, which 
is becoming more and more remote, and looks more 
and more obscure and insignificant, like a railroad sta- 
tion on the level plains, at which you gaze as you re- 
cede from it, standing on the platfoim of the last car, 



2 26 ISRAEL EUSON DWINEEL. 

till the parallel rails seem to run together, and the town 
becomes a speck on the horizon, or a film of dust float- 
ing in the air near you, and you rub your eyes to tell 
which. So they regard the objects of Christianity, as 
settling down, and vanishing in the distance, to be 
found soon only on the guide-books and historical rec- 
ords ; having present influence only by virtue of tradi- 
tion, education, association, and a certain tenacity of 
life which keeps a begun faith of mankind from dying 
out when its uses are over ; and to be seen now only 
by those on the rear of the train, and looking back. It 
is a great mistake, and arises from an utter misconcep- 
tion of the spirit and genius of Christianity. Chris- 
tianity is looking forward. It is out in front of the 
train, pointing the advanced disciples, pointing the 
church, pointing the world, ahead, to the unattained 
and incomparable blessings, and saying ever: "For- 
ward ; on, on." 

Would you look into this matter ? Would you con- 
sider some of the particulars ? I will specify certain 
points in which Christianity as existing among men is 
leading them from its own past up to a higher future, 
and holding before mankind its own sublimer objects, 
to arouse their faith and devotedness. 

THE WORKS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

Take, then, the works of Christianity. Is she con- 
tent with what has been done, the enterprises under- 
taken in her name, the blessings her followers have 
bestowed on society, and the range of nations among 
which they have scattered them ? By no means. She 
does not feel that her work is done, or that she is put- 
ting a finishing touch to it here and there, or repeating 
a dead routine of inherited labors. Her work rises be- 
fore her as a vision, — stupendous, urgent, grand ; and 



SERMONS. 227 

her cry to her followers is : " Onward to the neglected 
masses, the half- Christianized population, the unap- 
proached districts. Bring the people to Christ. Give 
them light. Raise them to the Christian tone. Carry 
the gospel to the ends of the earth, and make its might 
and beauty felt wherever it goes." And Christian 
people in making these advances are recasting from 
time to time, their methods, and adopting new ones. 
Some of the old work, also, they are no longer doing, 
or doing with less energy, preparing, under the fresh 
divine inspiration, for the new work to which they 
have a higher call. So Christians are ever marching, 
or liable to be marching, out of old service up to new 
and higher, which God keeps before them. 

SOCIAL ideals. 

Turn to the social ideals of Christianity. Where are 
they ? In the vision which dawns upon us, under the 
influence and teachings which she inspires, are objects 
such as these : homes for all, and all homes pure and 
loving ; education, in which intellect, heart and body 
are proportionably cared for and cultured ; a reign of 
medicine in which there is no quackery ; justice in 
whose ermine is no stain, in whose knowledge and 
penetration no deficiency ; legislation at once intelli- 
gent and incorrupt ; a press competent to handle the 
great questions of social life and po itical economy, 
now so often treated with flippancy and shallowness ; 
a literature healthful, inspiring, and nourishing the 
life of the nation, and no other than such literature ; a 
public preferring to be fed with truth to being stirred 
with sensation ; a church in which the Spirit of Christ 
reigns, and all other spirits are cast out ; a kingdom of 
Christ on earth, in which all Christians live in unity 
and peace ; society bound together with bonds of love, 



228 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. 

and illustrating the principles of truth and righteous- 
ness ; all swords beaten into plough-shares, and spears 
into pruning hooks. Now these ideals of society all 
loom up in the future. Christianity points forward to 
them as we look towards the New Jerusalem " coming 
down from Gcd out of heaven." We do not see them 
as we look back towards the Old Jerusalem, or any 
favored period in the past. They are not among the 
fulfillments of any patristic or apostolic age. And 
under her call we are, here and there, leaving the old 
attempts to overtake them, and pressing in new direc- 
tions towards the grand conceptions and inspirations. 
The Christian world, restless under the half-successes, 
half-failures, of the by-gone time, and impatient to be 
off after the mark of the higher calling beckoning to 
it, is leaving, indeed, some things that have been hon- 
ored of God in their day, eager to take short cuts to 
the end. 

MORAL STANDARD OF CHRISTIANITY. 

Let us glance at the moral standard cf Christianity. 
Where is that ? Is the ethical system of our religion 
behind the age ? Is it something that has been out- 
grown, as the world has advanced in knowledge, 
science, the practical arts, and the multiplication of 
comforts and elegancies ? Has the moral code proved 
too sluggish and slow-footed, and fallen behind an ad- 
vancing and outrunning civilization ? No, no ; a 
thousand times no. The very distance, often painful 
and discouraging, between the moral precepts of 
Christianity and the practices of Christians, shows the 
unapproachable nobility of the code, and its great dis- 
tance in advance of the church as well as the world. 
It rises before the age, and lures and draws it on, lead- 
ing the way to the richer coming of the Lord of right- 



SERMONS. 229 

eousness, as the star rose before the Magi, and led 
them to the infant Jesus. It is inimitable in its reaches 
of truth, justice, humility, virtue, self-control, brother- 
hood, charity ; and no one despises it, or speaks slight- 
ingly of it, without betraying his own love of license 
and degeneracy. When the world comes up to it and 
practices it, the millennial age, all the ethic good that 
prophets have sighted and poets sung, will have come. 
Towards that standard the Christian world is sum- 
moned to advance, and is advancing — not regularly, 
not with equal steps, not with brilliant speed ; with 
advances and retreats, as the tide comes in ; but 
grandly, taking the centuries as mile-posts. At the 
same time it is slowly passing away from some of the 
forms and methods in w r hich it had formerly sought to 
embody its moral convictions, and adopting those 
nearer its present goal. It is leaving the old attain- 
ments, and seeking the ever-living principles lying in 
the new fields. The great changes in the circum- 
stances and conditions of modern life have introduced 
many new ethical problems in government, political 
economy and social life, putting the old applications 
and procedures in many cases at fault, and making 
necessary quite a new adjustment of principles ; but 
the old moral principles — which are also ever new, as 
sunlight is new, and truth is new — are sufficient, and 
when our civilization comes up to the point of apply- 
ing them, all will be well, and we shall be far ahead. 

CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 

Now how is it with Christian doctrine ? It is often 
freely asserted that this is behind the times. And I 
do not deny that there have been, or that there are, 
doctrines held by Christians that are behind the times. 
But what is true Christian doctrine ? It is the result- 



230 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. 

ant of the teachings of Scripture in relation to truth 
and duty, an emanation in scientific form from the les- 
sons of Revelation, of all it contains about God and 
man, time and eternity, human want, duty, privilege, 
destiny. Now this uprising and embodiment in exact 
statement of the very soul of Revelation, this genuine 
orthodox}-, is ever far before the church, above it, 
floating as an apparition over the Bible, too grand and 
divine to be fully and perfectly grasped and mastered 
by any single mind, or by the church in any single 
age. Creeds are not true orthodox}^. Ecclesiastical 
formulas are not. They are index-fingers, pointing in 
a poor human way towards it. Orthodox}^ the di- 
vine thing itself, is }^onder, where the Bible is, ahead 
of the church, ahead of interpreters, ahead of theolo- 
gians ; and they are, from age to age, pressing on to 
come up to it — some reluctantly, some by pressure of 
divine leadings, some of alacrity and good will, but in 
weakness. Written creeds as attempts to grasp this 
divine orthodoxy are human necessities, not necessarily 
or often bad, not bad in themselves at all. They are 
good when carried forward by those who hold them to 
their source and interpreted in a transparent way, 
when read in the divine blaze of the inspired truth 
under them. He who affects contempt for them and 
ridicules them, betrays his own doctrinal unjointed- 
ness, and mental looseness and superficiality. But 
creeds that the holders have suffered to slough off 
from Revelation and fall behind it, and which they 
treat as having an entity and worth of their own, and 
cherish as an end, instead of regarding as hints and a 
help, are unprofitable and lead to looking backwards. 
Of course, some of the old formulated statements on 
points of doctrine the church is abandoning — not the 



SERMONS. 231 

old truths under them, but the old statements ; into 
others she is putting new meanings ; and on other 
points she is in the act of slowly stammering out new 
statements to meet her advancing conceptions of 
Scripture. She looks, indeed, at the Apostles' Creed, 
the Athanasian Creed, the Westminster Catechism, 
the Thirty-nine Articles, the Savoy Confession, the 
Boston Declaration ; but she does not look back to 
them, and rest her vision there. She looks at them as 
she looks forward, and reads through them, and under 
them, and beyond them, and above them, the far 
richer and diviner theology of Revelation, using them 
as helps and hints, not as the exhaustive and perfect 
statement. And so the genius of orthodoxy lives on 
in the church, and maintains its substantial continuity 
and identit}^ from age to age, slowly advancing towards 
the rounded and symmetrical and just orthodoxy 
w r hich rises in idea from Scripture. So the great doc- 
trines of depravity and guilt, inspiration, probation, 
redemption, pardon, new life, prayer, the divinity of 
Christ, the Trinity, heaven and hell, underlie the 
Christian faith of all the ages, and put them in one 
line with the marching theology. 

CENTRAL FIGURE OF CHRISTIANITY. 

Again, how is it with the central figure in the 
Christian faith — the Divine Lord and Saviour? Does 
Christianity merely call her votaries to serve a histor- 
ical Christ, to take up with a Christ of dead genera- 
tions, to add themselves to the end of a darkening 
procession coming down from the sepulcher, to stand 
and look with wistful eyes towards the receding glo- 
ries that shone around Bethlehem, Capernaum, Beth- 
any, the Temple, and the Mount of Olives, going 



232 ISRAEL EDSON DWINEEE. 

backward through the world in order to look as long- 
as possible towards Christ, and feeling that they are 
ever farther from their Light ? Never, never ! It 
furnishes a living Christ, a risen Christ, a Christ in the 
heavens, above, beyond, in front ; interceding for us, 
stooping towards us, drawing us on ; a light, a joy, an 
inspiration ahead. True, the church takes up the his- 
torical portraiture, believes in it, honors it ; but carries 
that portrait forward and looks through it at the Lord 
above. True, also, it modifies somewhat, from time 
to time, its conception of the portrait. But what of 
that ? It is not a conception it is serving, nor a por- 
trait, but a living person. It is not a bundle of history 
it is worshipping, but the divine Lord, once appearing 
in history, now in the lighted world above, and com- 
ing in blessed nearness and fellowship to all believing 
ones. It takes up, as far as able, all that is in the 
history, the work, the life, the teachings, the exam- 
ple, the sacrificial death and atonement ; takes it all 
up, and then on the strength of this, and by means of 
this as wings, soars away to the living, helping, sav- 
ing Christ above and be}^ond. 

Christianity, brethren, is thus a religion of expect- 
ancy. It holds up its blessings in the future, in ad- 
vance, towards the rim of time, as well as beyond 
time. It is a religion that puts its followers on march- 
ing orders ; and this carries with it the necessity of 
making changes, of leaving certain things, and ad- 
vancing to new quarters. It is a marching religion, in 
relation to its works, ideals, ethics, doctrines, and 
divine Lord. This truth is a light, as w T ell as a truth, 
shining over a broad region of fact, and helping us to 
understand certain things which else might be per- 
plexing. 



SERMONS. 233 

PERSONS OF A GEOOMY TURN. 

I will mention two or three of them. It helps us to 
understand why some good men, who hold the Chris- 
tian faith as they have come to believe it very tena- 
ciously, take a despondent view of the prospects of 
Christianity. In every age there have been persons of 
this gloomy turn in the church. They like the old 
forms and ways, and commit the common mistake of 
supposing they are inseparable from the substance. 
They see the process of removal. Parties are taking 
down tents and pitching them elsewhere. Fragments 
of sacred furniture are scattered and left. The old lines 
and order are disturbed. Enterprises once sacred are 
abandoned or have become weakened, and new ones 
undertaken. Old ideals cease to fire enthusiasm, and 
many persons are going after new loves, and they know 
not whether these loves are divine. Even some por- 
tions of the ancient formulas of orthodoxy are ques- 
tioned, and others abandoned altogether. They see 
these things, and are troubled. They forget that we 
have not as yet ' ' come to the rest and to the inher- 
itance " which the Eord our God giveth us. They 
seem to think we have come to it, or our fathers came 
to it long ago ; and that these things are signs that we 
are going awa}^ from it, instead of really being signs 
that we are advancing towards it. They see the Prov- 
idence that shaped the Christianity of the past, but see 
no Providence presiding over the movements of Chris- 
tianity now. They observe the raveling edge of the 
divine web, but not the edge that is knitting and weav- 
ing together. They see the things left behind, but 
understand not the new gains and conquests. They 
think that Christianity ought to be doing the old things 
16 



234 ISRAEL KDSON DWINELL. 

in the old way ; and because it is not, but is doing some 
new things in new ways, they mourn over its signs of 
life as over decay. They need a deeper, broader, truer 
view ; a front view instead of a rear view. 

VISIONARIES. 

This subject helps us to understand the mistake made 
in an opposite direction by a class of visionaries and 
anti-Christian schemers. They think that the forms 
and usages of Christianity are all there is to it ; and 
looking at the changes and magnifying them, and tak- 
ing no account of the abiding under-principles, they 
imagine that it is slowly changing its character. See- 
ing only the new side, they fancy it is about to bre k 
away from its connections with the past, and become a 
new religion, and meet them in a kind of eclectic pa- 
ganism. Not perceiving that the modifications relate 
to the externals, not to the substance, and that there 
is a line of divine continuity running through it in all 
ages, giving it unity, they congratulate themselves that 
they are soon to have it as an ally. Foolish hope ! 
Christianity is to turn no summersaults. It is to leap 
into no revolutions. It will disappoint those who are 
waiting to have it run out into broad Churchism, or 
Pantheism, or Liberalism ; or take sides w T ith Infidelity ; 
or make friends with Free Lovers or Internationals, or 
Spiritualists, and expunge the law of God, and set up 
in its place a human lust and passion. It is, and ever 
will be, the old and the new Christianity still, wearing 
a slowly changeable dress, made necessary on account 
of her growth and changing circumstances, but which 
becomes even more bright and glistening as she ad- 
vances, with the radiant spirit of the Lord shining 
from her through it. 



SERMONS. 235 

WHY SOME PROPHESY DECLINE. 

In the light of this subject we can also understand 
why some persons who have no S3 7 mpathy with Chris- 
tianity announce its decline and early death. They go 
round and pick up pieces of its sloughed skin ; they 
hunt for fragments of shell which the mighty but still 
young crustacean has outgrown and torn off ; put these 
bits and shreds together, catalogue and label them, and 
frame a proclamation to the world that Christianity is 
dead, or dying, and these are the proofs of it. They 
are diggers of fossils, — searchers among graves and 
tombs. They have the instinct of hyenas, jackals, 
buzzards, and hover about the rear of the great advanc- 
ing army for the waste and putrescence left behind. 
All this they see ; but they perceive not the living, 
working, thronging army out in the open air and broad 
day in advance, going on to higher and brighter serv- 
ice, massing its columns, multiplying its forces, and 
making the thick shadows of the kingdom of darkness 
retire farther and farther. It is, morally and spiritually, 
a mightier power on the earth now than ever before, 
having more influence over the faiths and lives of men ; 
yet they see it not, and resolve its influence into the 
strange persistence of human credulity. More money, 
more energy and thought, more men, than in any other 
age, are in this freely consecrated to carry it into new 
lands or among neglected populations ; and they have 
no appreciation of the facts. In 1873, as I learn by a 
summary prepared by Rev. M. M. G. Dana, the Evan- 
gelical churches of the United States reported a mem- 
bership of 5,400,000, about one-seventh of the whole 
population, and almost one-fourth of all above fifteen 
years of age ; and in 1870, the Protestants reported, in 



236 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. 

the census, church property to the amount of $293,- 
498,015, and church-sittings for 19,674,548 persons, an 
increase of 1 1 per cent in the last ten years, while the 
church property was more than double what it was in 
i860. If such facts indicate decline of faith in Chris- 
tianity, the decline must be, like Darwin's "Descent 
of Man, " a decline upwards. 

EBBS AND FLOWS. 

True, in the mixing up of nationalities and systems 
in these times, the communities once almost wholly 
Christian have opened their ranks, and received among 
them foreign elements of doubt and skepticism from 
heterogeneous quarters, so that there are no more any 
such homogeneous Christian communities as there 
once were. True, also, unbelief is now voiced and 
jubilant, and occupies noisy places. Fifty unbelievers 
could be named in the United States who make more 
noise than a thousand modest, humble Christians of far 
more culture, learning and parts, whose names also 
could be given. The declarations of faith do not startle 
the public, and therefore the press is not eager to take 
them up and report them. Christianity flows on as 
a quiet, broad, mighty, swelling river — almost a sea ; 
infidelity as a stormy, muddy, wild mountain torrent. 
True, once more, Christianity advances by a law of 
flows and ebbs at any one point, but in the large field 
of the world the flows exceed the ebbs, as when the 
tide is coming in. It grows as a tree grows, which has 
its times of shedding leaves and seeming to lose ground , 
which, however, are really times of preparation and 
waiting for a new start of life. It ma} T seem to lose 
here and there, now and then, but it is only to gain so 
much the more in the end, or elsewhere. Christ is 



SERMONS. 237 

" head over all things to the Church, " and makes all 
things serve her. 

Further, if the fact that men are changing some of 
the externals of their Christian faith and practice proves 
a general decline in Christianuy, then, for the same 
reason it must be conceded, there is a much greater 
decline among their respective votaries of faith, in 
science, education, and the practical arts ; for, in all 
these, men are giving up old positions and hurrying 
into new ones, to an extent inconceivably greater than 
is true in the case of Christianity. Yet science, educa- 
tion and the practical arts are not dying out, nor men's 
faith in them. They live on in new and more vigorous 
forms ; and so will Christianity, which passes through 
no such fluctuations and metamorphoses, live on. 

ONWARD THE WATCHWORD. 

My friends, it is this religion which you are invited 
to ally 3 T ourselves with, and aid with soul, body and 
fortune. It is this religion which you are asked to 
help put in all the unoccupied regions of our land, and 
other lands also ; a marching religion, a religion that 
holds up something before the world, and then reaches 
down and undergirds humanity, and helps it up towards 
it. When you give your money to it, when you give 
your influence to it, when you give your faith to it, 
when you give yourself to it, ycu do not throw your 
gift backwards towards the rear of civilization and the 
world's progress, but forwards towards its rising day. 

Thus we see, brethren, that the whole genius of our 
religion commits us to aggressive movement here in 
America. There is no looking back, no standing 
still. Onward is the watchword ; onward against the 
strongholds of sin ; onward against the powers of 



238 ISRAEL EDSON DWINEEL. 

darkness ; onward, till gospel light and privilege pene- 
trate every alley and cellar in our cities, every camp 
and cabin on our mountains, and thread every high- 
way across our plains. Onward against the great 
mountain of intemperance, till it becomes a plain ; 
against the social evil, till it disappears ; against super- 
stition, till it is no more ; onward, till bereaved men 
and women no longer ask solemn counsel of their own 
fancies, mysteriously conjured forth from secret hiding- 
places in their souls, and reported back to their senses 
as if they were visitors from another world ; onward, 
till purity wins office, and honesty and capacity hold 
it ; onward, till frauds cease, and public virtue equals 
public intelligence ; onward, till men honor God, and 
are as eager to obey his laws as to know how to use 
them ; onward, onward, till Christ comes, and again 
says — not referring to the preparatory work, but the 
whole superstructure of the world's redemption resting 
on it — " It is finished ! " Onward, onward, till " the 
kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of 
our Lord and his Christ " — " for ye are not as yet come 
to the rest and to the inheritance which the Lira 1 your God 
giveth you." 



II. 

*THE ASSAILED BUT SOXQUERIXG BOOK. 



" / am the Lord that maketh all things ; that frustrateth the 
toke?is of the liars, and maketh diviners mad; that turneth 
wise men backward, and maketh their knowledge foolish; that 
confirmeth the word of his servant, and performeth the counsel 
of his messenger.'''' — Isaiah 44; 24.-26. 

Here is a book — an old book — portions of it more 
than 3,300 years old, and the latest written nearly 
1,800 years ago. Why is it here? It has come in 
conflict with man}' human systems. It was put into 
the world of books a stranger, without peer or helper 
among the books, in an uncongenial atmosphere, and 
has been ever since the object of ceaseless attacks, open 
and covert. Yet, strange to say, looked at simply as 
a literary peculiarity, it is an overcoming book. It is 
endowed not only with some mysterious propert}^ of 
life, of indestructibility, but also of conquest. It lives 
on but to conquer. It vanquishes its assailants, and 
holds the ground once occupied by them, while the}', 
one after another, disappear and are forgotten. It is 
plain that for some reason the Bible is an overcoming 
book. 

CONFLICTING BOOKS DIE. 

In no age has it alone proposed to man a spiritual 
system, a revelation, or the light he needs for his 

* Preached in Sacramento, June 10, 1875. 



24O ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. 

guidance and safety. In every age it has had compet- 
itors that offered easy, acceptable and different terms 
of welfare and bliss. Yet this remarkable fact meets 
us all along the line of history, that those systems come 
and go — come with all the novelty, attraction and ad- 
vantages of starting in a new age and profiting by the 
accumulated wisdom, and promising to be a finalit3 T , 
and go smitten with premature deca} r or antiquity into 
oblivion, to make room for successors which repeat the 
process ; while the book survives, and never in its spirit 
and moral uses becomes old, any more than light be- 
comes old, or fire or truth or beauty. Look back across 
the centuries. Where are the systems which were 
once the proud theologies and religious philosophies of 
men, but whose very names are now strange or histor- 
ical only ? Where are the writings of Celsus, Julian 
the Apostate ; of the Gnostics, the Neo Platonists, the 
Manichaeans, the Ghibell.nes ; of Lord Herbert, Hoppe, 
the Earl of Shaftsbury, Toland, Collins, Lord Boling- 
broke, Hume, Paine ; of the scoffing Voltaire, of 
Diderot and other spiritual levelers of the Encyclope- 
dia, and of Rousseau, eulogizing a state of nature as the 
supreme felicity ? Their S3^stems, as furnishing a reli- 
gion or a substitute for one, now slumber, and no one 
dreams of finding in any or all of them the way of life. 
For such purposes they are forgotten. They are cast 
off as the worthless exuviae of past ages. They lie as 
the dust which the Bible, as it has traveled down the 
centuries, raised, and which filled the air for a short 
time, but soon settled, and now shnpfy marks the track 
of the triumphal progress of the overcoming look. 
You would as soon think of exhuming your religion 
from the Zendavesta of the Parsees, the Puranas of the 
Hindoos, the mythology of the Greeks, or the legends 



SERMONS. 241 

•of the Scandinavians, as from them. The}' are searched 
and valued now simply as fossils, petrifactions of the 
dead past, hints for the historical resurrection of buried 
ages. 

THE NATURE OF THE BOOK TO LIVE. 

Yet while these and like books are soon displaced, 
are in their very nature and make up perishable and 
transient, the Bible betrays no such symptoms. It 
passes quietly and calmly down the ages, like a proph- 
et endowed with immortal youth, ever loved and hon- 
ored, and speaking living words to living souls ; or like 
a great spiritual sun, raying out into the darkness 
light just as fresh today as when it first began to shine 
—an ever-living and overcoming book, as if it were the 
nature of books to live and not to die, and' as if there 
were nothing strange and exceptional in its continu- 
ance. 

STRANGENESS AND SIGNIFICANCE OF THE FACT. 

Bear in mind in considering the strangeness of this 
fact, that the Bible makes no appeal to the lower na- 
ture and passions, or the prejudices of man or society. 
It finds at first no natural allies. It makes no friends 
till it has conquered their love from opposition or in- 
difference. It makes its way by a mighty conquest. 
Its life, moreover, and its aggressive power are moral, 
not those of the sword. It has no friends but such as 
choose to be. It reigns in the heart. It commands 
the homage of conscience. Man at first has a disrel- 
ish for it ; then, moved by moral and spiritual motives, 
reaches out and takes it, and then offers it to his broth- 
ers. Its victories are victories over the soul. Its suc- 
cesses represent the approval of so many minds and 



242 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. 

hearts. The successes of Islam represent so much 
force and passion ; of the Copernican system of astron- 
omy, so much intelligence ; of the American arms, so 
much patriotism and bravery ; the success of the Bible, 
so many approving reasons, consciences, wills — the 
highest homage of so many awakened and immortal 
souls. No other book, no other system, no other 
ciuse, has a success which means so much, which 
covers such a vast underlay of noble things, the assent 
of so much in man, reaching all the way from the high- 
est approval and exercise of the soul to the most trivial 
service of the fingers — the assent, in a word, of the 
whole man. 

CONQUERING POWER OF THE BOOK. 

And remember, again, in considering the Bible as 
the overcrowning Book, that it does not merely live 
with a narrow and thin line of believers, across the 
centuries, but that there has been a great and increas- 
ing host gathering around it. Profound and signifi- 
cant as its successes are in the individual — running 
all through the soul of man as electricity runs through 
his body — they are broad and enlarging also. Many in 
every Christian century have found in it their faith, 
fastened on it their hopes, and clung to its promises as 
to the hand of God. It has steadily, and to large and 
accumuating numbers, furnished the vital religion of 
Christendom ; and, far beyond the acknowledged cir- 
cle of its influence, it shapes the general thinking and 
feeling of multitudes. There is not another book at 
this moment that has a thousandth part of the power 
over mankind, which this has ; and the same is true of 
any age since the completion of the canon. Go back 
to what century you please of the Christian era, and 



SERMONS. 243, 

still the Bible was then the living Book — the one Book 
which, for some reason, most influenced men, taking 
the deepest, strongest, longest hold on them. It 
meets other books in their own age, at the moment of 
their freshness and greatest power, and yet it is then 
more a living Book than they. It meets them on their 
own ground, and, if antagonistic to it, overcomes them 
— it nestling snugly in many human hearts, more 
prized than life, cherished almost as a part of the soul, 
while they excite at most a superficial curiosity or en- 
thusiasm, and pass away. This was the case in its 
first great contest, when it met the paganism of Greece 
and Rome closely interwoven with the existing domes- 
tic, social and civil life ; it survived and that fell. 
This was the case when it first encountered the relig- 
ion of the barbarians who overran and conquered 
Rome ; it conquered those rude conquerors. This was 
the case when, subsequently, in the Middle Ages, the 
hierarchy claimed and exercised in their councils the 
power of erecting traditions to a power of authority 
equal to the Sacred Scriptures ; it sprang from the 
unholy alliance in the Reformation, and traditions 
waned. This was the case in each of the four great 
modern issues, which may be vaguely designated with 
reference to the source of the respective movements as 
the issue with English infidelity and the issue with 
French atheism, in the last century, and the issue with 
German philosophy and the issue with materialistic 
science, in the present ; for here, also, so far as re- 
sults have reached a finality, as in the first three, the 
Bible is the book of life and power, and they are the 
systems of defeat and death ; and although we are in 
the midst of the conflict with the fourth, there is no 
more doubt what the result will be here than if it were 



244 ISRAEL KDSON DWINELL. 

already reached. Materialism has no light to give be- 
wildered man, and must give place to God's word, 
which has such a light. 

WHY THE BOOK IS HERE. 

If, now, we raise the inquiry, " Why is this book 
here ? " or, in other words, ' ' Why is it an overcoming 
book? " we shall find a sufficient reason to be, because 
it is God's book, and God made it to live. Its origin 
is, professedly, unlike that of all other productions ; 
and the more one knows of it, is in sympathy with it, 
and comprehends it, the more he perceives that the 
fact justifies the claim. The evidences of its Divine 
source come rolling in on the spirituality-awakened 
and docile soul, the Godly and kindred mind, with 
cumulative power. It has, indeed, a human element 
of form, manner, instrumentality, mingled with the 
Divine element of substance, matter, purpose, object ; 
but it is still properly called God's book. In it He re- 
veals Himself, His doings and His will, so far as He 
deems it necessary for the use of man. He reveals 
Himself in nature. He reveals Himself in the human 
soul. But it is here, and only here, that He reveals 
Himself in a book. 

GOD MADE IT TO LIVE. 

Now because it is His book, and His great book- 
medium of communicating His will to man — timeless 
man, man in all ages subsequent to its origin — He 
watches over it, that it may live. The same omniscient 
wisdom and creative power and skill that in some way, 
no matter what, swung our earth out into space, amid 
the countless attractions and disturbing forces of the 
universe, and yet, anticipating them all, causes it to 



SERMONS. 245 

pass through them undisturbed, hold on its way and 
fulfill its mission ; an enduring world, though comets 
dash past, and satellites swing around, and planets 
brush by, and the whole solar system, all in a move- 
ment within itself, is sweeping on somewhere through 
the outlying universe filled with systems of worlds of 
its own ; forecast the track and perils of the Bible when 
he sent it on its mission, prepared it accordingly, and 
will guide it safely through them. No false revelation 
or wild assault of perverted genius will, accordingly ^ 
be allowed, like a comet, to strike it and wrap it in 
flames. No sister revelation of God in nature or the 
soul will break out from its own path, like an unorbed 
planet, and dash it in pieces. And as it holds on its 
way through the Universe of letters and books, no one 
of them will come in collision with it, to turn it out of 
its course. For it is God's book, and he made it to 
live ; and, therefore, it is an overcoming book. 

ITS SPIRIT IMMORTAL. 

Besides, God has put an immortality into it which 
tends to preserve it by its own energy. This is the 
spirit of the book, ' ' My words, they are spirit and they 
are life." As the Divine element in the soul, the Di- 
vine image put into it by the original purpose and cre- 
ation of God, with such aid as God is pleased to add to 
carry out the purpose, bears the soul up amid all ex- 
posures and makes it immortal, so that you cannot 
destroy it by any assaults, and it laughs at pistols and 
swords and fagots, and even the crash of worlds, so the 
Divine element, the spirit, which God has put in His 
book, with such help as he is pleased to continue to 
bestow, makes it indestructible and immortal, and 
skeptics and enemies assail it in vain. This book lives 



.246 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. 

and overcomes because there is Divine soul in it ; other 
books are overcome and die because they are human 
and have no such soul. ' ' The word of our God shall 
stand forever." Ghosts die, spirits live. 

A BOOK OF TRUTH. 

Again, this book is a revelation of truth. It is not 
only God's book, but its contents are an unfolding of 
important spiritual facts. It lifts the veil from a hidden 
world, which we are already in — the world of spiritual 
realities and relations — and discloses all that it is nec- 
essary for us to see for our safe conduct. It is tme taper 
which lights up the dark cave to the traveler, who 
must find his way safely through and out, or perish. 
Truth lives, error dies ; therefore the Bible lives. 
"Truth," sa}^s Milton, "is strong next to the Al- 
mighty." "Thy word is true from the beginning; 
and every one of thy righteous judgments endureth 
forever." 

IT WEDS ITSELF TO THE SOUL. 

And another element in the overcoming power of the 
Bible is the fact that it is not only truth, but truth 
adapted to the spiritual condition and wants of man. 
It is truth playing into the needs and laws of the soul. 
It is truth that is just as much designed for spiritual 
nourishment and health as food for bodily support. It 
is truth in relation to man as needing salvation. It is 
truth that fits the soul, as a mother's love and care fit 
the helpless babe. It comes down to man just as he 
is, and furnishes just the light and guidance he needs, 
that he may be raised up to glory. It recognizes these 
three great central facts, and provides for them, which 
must be done in any religious system, or it is worth- 



SEK.MONS. 247 

less : Man a sinner needing pardon and cleansing, the 
necessity of an atonement, and the reality and presence 
of a personal Saviour. And around these centers it 
groups all the collaterals and aids of a perfect gospel, 
which, like the Sabbath, is made for man, not man for 
that ; and all this it hands over to him with the varied 
attractions and persuasions of varied letters — historic, 
poetic, logical, rhetorical ; in type, prophecy, symbol, 
parable, warning, exhortation, command. The con- 
sequence is that the Bible lays itself on the human soul 
receiving it ; nay, more, penetrates and weds itself to 
it in all its parts and powers, clasping them with vital 
bands, and living with its life. It is thus grown into 
the soul in inseparable union. Other books men can 
lay aside, forget, suffer to be taken from them or go 
into oblivion ; but this, if loved as God's book, they 
will cling to at the stake, the inquisitor's rack, through 
fire and flood, and the loss of all things earthly. And 
I venture that you, my friends, as little as you may 
have thought you love the Bible, would, every one of 
you, give up all other books before you would consent 
to have this put beyond reach, and would be willing to 
fight unto the death before you would allow it to be 
wrested from you by any combination of its enemies. 
This is an overcoming book because of the devotion to 
it of human souls, especially of such as have found in 
it the way of life, a Saviour, the will of God, and the 
hopes of a blessed immortality. 

IT IDENTIFIES ITSELF WITH THE LIFE OF 
CIVILIZATION. 

Furthermore, it should be remembered that the Bi- 
ble, wherever it goes and finds a real lodgment, creates 
around it the institutions of civilization and humanity. 



248 ISRAEL KDSON DWINELL. 

It populates the land with powerful friendships and 
supporters. It penetrates the living interests of so- 
ciety, and in connection with them, at once blending 
with them and moulding them, weds itself with the so- 
cial fabric. And such, in a short time, is its hold on 
the organized vitalities, the institutions and customs of 
a Christian community, that you will be obliged to 
tear down the social structure, with all its civilization 
and humanity, to extirpate the Bible and its influence ; 
and if you arrest the Bible and its influence, 3'ou begin 
the work of social demolition. It is this power of the 
Bible to produce all humane and noble things, inter- 
weave itself with them, and buttress itself with them, 
that is another element of its endurance and progress. 

SUGGESTED EXCEPTIONS. 

The only books that can be suggested to a historical 
mind as a possible exception to these remarks is the 
Koran, and possibly some of the writings of Confucius 
and of the mystics of India. But consider that the issue 
between the Koran and the Bible is not yet settled ; 
that at this moment the Koran is slowly melting away 
before the Bible, under the influence of moral forces, 
to say nothing of other causes ; and that, up to the 
present generation, the Bible never came into actual 
moral or intellectual contact with it. Islamism was 
formerly walled around by physical forces, more insur- 
mountable and repulsive than the Chinese wall, and 
was made absolutely inaccessible to the spiritual forces 
of Christianity. If the two S} T stems had all along been 
brought together on the moral arena — as for the first 
time they have been to some extent within a few years 
— and had fought it out there, the Koran would have 
been long ago an obsolete book. There has been real- 



SERMONS. 249 

ly no issue between the Koran and the Bible, only be- 
tween the sword of Mohammed and the scepter of the 
Christian Powers, until our day. Here is no excep- 
tion to the position that the Bible is the overcoming 
book. The same is true of the sacred books of China 
and India, the continuance of which is to be ascribed, 
not so much to the intelligent research and conviction 
of individual minds, as to a certain national habit of 
hereditary transmission of faith, a blind momentum of 
doctrine resulting from peculiar national inertia and 
isolation. 

THE PAST AN INDICATION OF THE FUTURE. 

Thus, we have seen the remarkable history of this 
book, and the reasons for it. It is the strangely living 
and overcoming book. This is the fact all through the 
past down to the present. Will it be any less so in 
the future ? The reasons are in their nature unchang- 
ing — the Bible, ever God's book ; ever a revelation of 
truth ; ever a book of principles, not of forms ; ever 
adapted to the needs of the soul — will the result be dif- 
ferent hereafter ? Will the Bible, by and by, be less 
divine, or the other books more divine ! No ; we have 
reason to believe the same book, which alone has 
swept down the ages as the conquering book, will go 
on, conquering and to conquer, so long as man remains 
man and has the spiritual wants of a man. ' ' Heaven 
and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass 
away." And this is the teaching of history and the 
voice of reason, as well as the testimony of Heaven. 

Yet, all through the Christian centuries, there have 

been those who, turning away from this, have sought 

elsewhere, in some of the cheap pretenses of the da}', 

a revelation and a religion for their souls ! Oh, how 

17 



250 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. 

blind to histoty, and the deeper facts which make his- 
tory ! How pitiful and brief the career of all books 
and systems and efforts that have hurled themselves 
against the Bible ! Yet, each new set, looking else- 
where for their panacea, expect that the last product, 
whatever it is, that bids for their acceptance and wins 
it, is the grand discovery for the soul of man ! And 
away they go, untaught by all the past, uninfluenced 
by the real facts of the present, charmed by the bril- 
liant colors of their bubble ! 

It is not difficult to foreknow the fate of am r system 
or effort brought forwaid to supplant the Bible. It 
will array itself against God and His providence. It 
will fail to satisfy the soul. It will soon demonstrate 
that it outlies the religion and realm of truth. And it 
will fail, as all its predecessors have failed. 

A CONTRAST. 

A great New England heresiarch in early life, some 
forty years ago, boasted that he would travel through 
the country, and by preaching and lecturing, revolu- 
tionize the theology of New England, strike out the 
traditional from men's faith, disburden the Scriptures 
of the supernatural and unhistorical, and establish the 
" absolute religion." And he did what he could. He 
traveled ; he lectured ; he preached ; he attacked ihe 
theology of the Bible, and the supernatural in the 
Bible, and thus the Bible. He used scarcasm and wit 
and eloquence, and beautiful letters. He drew great 
assemblies, and he thought, and men thought, he was 
a power in the land. Compared with him the buzzing 
against revelation within a few weeks in this city and 
elsewhere in the State, by a popular lecturer from the 
East, was, — for scholarship, science, philosophy, for 
skill in letters and in massing public opinion, and 



SKRMONS. 251 

adaptation to lead off in a revolutionary movement, — 
for everything but assertion and brilliant declamation 
and arrogance in proclaiming a hostility to Christianity 
that justified itself by no basis of fact, or logic, or rea- 
son, and that rested solely on his own personality, but 
the peppering of Gibraltar with a revolver, compared 
with its steady bombardment with Krupp guns. Yet, 
notwithstanding this great heresiarch's efforts and ad- 
vantages, the Bible lived on and he failed. He built 
no institutions. He left no organized succession. He 
sowed no living seeds, — some such as are floating im- 
perceptibly in the air. Nothing positive of his build- 
ing survives ; nothing positive of his attacking in the 
Bible, or the theology of the Bible, or the supernatural 
of the Bible, has died. But a humble minister of 
Christ, without brilliant parts, without eloquence, or 
wit, or great worldly wisdom, without his self-con- 
scious pride, or towering ambition, or arrogant per- 
sonality, and with only moderate powers, yet, know- 
ing that God has put his mind in a book, and under- 
standing that mind, and knowing how to declare it 
plainly to his fellow men, without pretense or bluster or 
travel, has quietly labored in his parish, preaching 
God's word, and has seen his preaching taking root in 
schools and institutions of humanity, in the industries 
and virtues of the people, in all the beautiful graces of 
this life, and the assured hopes of the next ; and, dying, 
has left whole sowings of the precious seed to spring 
up in future harvests. Yes, yes, my brethren, in our 
day, here and elsewhere, the I^ord is the same. " He 
frustrateth the tokens of liars, he maketh diviners 
mad ; he turneth wise men backward, and maketh 
their knowledge foolish ; but he confirrneth the word 
of his servant, and performeth the council of his mes- 
sengers." 



III. 



* PROPERTY AN INSTRUMENT FOR MORAL 
TRAINING. 



" And God said, Let us make ma?i in our own image, after our 
likeness : and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, 
and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all 
the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the 
earth.'''' — Gen. i : 26. 

The key to the solution of inany vexing questions 
in social science and political economy lies on the sur- 
face of Scripture. Philosophers overlooking that, and 
ranging among human speculations, multiply theories 
and beat the air. The foundation of the right of prop- 
erty is one of those questions that have long agitated 
philosophers ; and they have looked for it, to little 
purpose, in one direction and another, outside of Scrip- 
ture : in original discovery and appropriation, in the 
value labor imparts to things, in undisputed posses- 
sions, in the necessities of organized society. But, 
way back in the book of Genesis, at the very an- 
nouncement of the creation of man, we find the true 
theory. We there learn that property is fundamentally 
the gift of God to man. God made man to have do- 
minion over the earth and its products, to be a property 
owner; and he put the earth and its products under 
man, to be his property . Here is the foundation of that 

* Preached in Sacramento, March 19, 1876. 



254 ISRAEL BDSON DWINKLL- 

right which philosophers, looking elsewhere, have 
chased in vain through endless fields of speculation ; 
and it lies on the surface at the front of Scripture. 

But this is not all this passage suggests. It couples 
this property-handling characteristic — a characteristic, 
so far as we know, peculiar to man, having little in 
the faintest degree analogous to it among the animal 
races, and nothing among angels — in immediate con- 
nection with man's moral being. " Let us make man 
in our image, after our likeness ; and let them have do - 
minion. ' ' This joining of man's property-seeking and 
property-holding nature to his moral nature, in the 
fundamental constitution of his earthly life, shows that 
it is the Divine intent that man should work out the 
problem of his freedom in connection with property . 
God thus indicates, from the start, that property is to 
be the element or the material, in connection with the 
seeking or handling of which the race as a race, how- 
ever it may be with particular persons, is to solve the 
great questions pertaining to the image of God within, 
— the questions of freedom, of character, of the welfare 
of the soul. This original foundation of the right of 
property, as the instrument of moral training, was re- 
affirmed to Noah and his sons, after the rest of the race 
had been swept away by the flood. God said to them : 
1 ' Kvery moving thing that liveth shall be meat for 
you : even as the green herb have I given you all 
things." 

My subject will lead me to speak on these points : 
The Moral Purpose of the Gift of Property to the Race ; 
the Adaptation of Property to be an Instrument of Moral 
Training ; and some of the Ways in which we Train 
Ourselves by Means of it. 

We are apt to take a low view of the purpose of prop- 



SERMONS. 255 

erty. Some think of it as related merely to subsist- 
ence. Others add to its uses for this purpose the aid 
it gives as a means of pleasure, indulgence, ostentation. 
Others add worldly power : others usefulness. Others 
regard it, apparently, as something to be accumulated 
for its own sake. And others look upon it, mainly, as 
one of the necessities of civilized life, and to be valued 
for its social uses. But high above all these is its de- 
sign to aid in our moral training. This view is main- 
tained by some of the best writers on political econo- 
my. It is possible to imagine that God might have 
instituted a s} T stem in which all our physical wants 
would have been met without ownership, by a method 
of spontaneous supplies, as in the case of birds and 
fishes. In this case we should have been deprived of 
a property basis for our spiritual education ; we should 
have been without the material instrument which we 
now occupy and use, and by means of which we shape 
character and destiny ; as weavers using the old-time 
loom sat on it, and by adroit movement of shuttle, 
beam and treadle wove the prized many-colored fdbric. 
The process is quite intelligible. Ownership, pres- 
ent or prospective, absorbs thought and energy, and 
keeps them from evaporating and disappearing like 
unbottled ether ; holds them where moral influences 
involved in the various transactions, coming upon 
them, may fix an indelible stamp on character. As 
paper, pencils, black-boards, are brought into use in 
learning arithmetic, and the young mind hovers over 
them to acquire a knowledge of numbers and to edu- 
cate thought ; as letters and words are studied and com- 
bined, and used, in that wonderful instrument, lan- 
guage, to help us up to the heights of science, history 
and poesy ; as the plays, disputes, occupations of chil- 



256 ISRAEL EDSON DWINEEL. 

dren in a true home, all furnish the occasion and the 
basis for the ever watchful and ever brooding home 
training on the part of mother and father ; so owner- 
ship present or prospective, with its endless complica- 
tions of seekings, handlings, usings and losings, its 
involutions and evolutions of struggle and motive, 
presents the occasions around which a large part of the 
influences affecting the moral education of the race 
gathers, and is practically the instrument in the use 
of which character is largely determined. 

A man standing on property is thus writing his 
name among the stars or in the depths. He is occu- 
pied with questions of mine and thine, dealing with 
values, following adventures, pushing things, or mak- 
ing ends meet ; and his soul is robing itself for an un- 
ending flight upward or downward. His thought is 
occupied with affairs, investments, harvests, trade, pre- 
scriptions, briefs ; and at the same time, a moral con- 
dition is settling down on him as insensibly and cer- 
tainly as the gathering shadows of approaching night 
or the increasing light of coming day. 

His purpose is altogether common-place and vulgar, 
perhaps, a question in the trashy arithmetic of dollars 
and cents, and the issue is a tragedy, the final act of 
which will be brought out at the judgment. He fan- 
cies, it may be, that in this department of his life he is 
working only on the lower side of his nature, provid- 
ing things necessary for the body, and is leaving in- 
intact and unprejudiced all his higher interests ; but 
these very secularities are a training instrument for 
the fashioning of his higher being, and when he 
comes to himself it is fashioned, or largely so. 

Property, then, has a moral purpose. And it has 
characteristics which eminently lit it for this design. 



SERMONS. 257 

111 the first place it is an innocent instrument. There 
is no stain on property in itself. It presents no snare, 
no weight, no obstruction, in the way of moral life. As 
God gave and intended it, it holds out absolutely inno- 
cent arms, white as snow, pure as crystal, to welcome 
those whose moral training is to go on in connection 
with it. Many think differently, and speak of it as 
if its origin were from beneath, and it were a mere 
trap in which to catch souls and drag them down to 
perdition. This is an impeachment of the wisdom and 
goodness of God, who devised property and bestowed 
it on the race before the fall, during the state of inno- 
cency. No damage then can come from it, in its 
original nature, to moral training, 

Again, it is primarily a passive instrument. It is 
something not to train us, but for us to train ourselves 
with, like dumb-bells. It has no power in itself, only 
as we give it power to make us great and good, or low 
and bad. We carry over to it and put into it its moral 
animus. It has the peculiar adaptation to moral train- 
ing, that we can dim its influence on us as we please. 
We can travel upwards or downwards by means of it, 
at our option. It is not an instrument that is greater 
than its master and outworks him, but remains morally 
obedient to his will, unless he himself fires it up and 
puts on the steam, causing it to run away with him. 
It lies in our hand, a great elemental force, indifferent 
whichever way it goes and what it does, till we give it 
the spark and the christening that makes it godly to 
us, or the venom that makes it devilish. 

It is also a facile and flexible instrument. It is capa- 
ble of aiding men in all the sinuosities and eccentrici- 
ties of their moral life — in all their high struggles and 
aspirations, in all their depressions and desperations. 



258 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. 

The love of it, or the struggle for it, or the use of it, 
or the loss of it, or the contempt for it — property in 
some form — lies back of aim st all of their soul history, 
and often not far back, as an accomplice or a foe, and 
equall3 T as an element of moral discipline whether 
accomplice or foe. So it follows them, and gives them 
a hand in the rounds of innocent joy, lofty endeavor, 
home life, church life, state life and Christian enter- 
prise. In like manner, all the approaches and purlieus 
of the life below — themeanderings of vice and dissipa- 
tion, the dark lanes of hate and crime, the nesting- 
places of corruption — men go down into these and feel 
their way through them, leaning on the same staff. 
Vary the motive as you will. Give it any direction you 
please, or any emphasis, or any hint in that direction, 
and this responsive agent is present withits ubiquitous 
influence. It is the most flexible and universal instru- 
ment known, singularly adapted for all manner of uses 
of moral beings during their training period. It is no 
less the currency of loves and hates, benevolence and 
crime, art and destructiveness, worship and impiety, 
than of drink, food, shelter, travel. It is the element 
that comes into play in the endearments of affection, 
the struggles of learning and patriotism, as well as in 
the building of houses and the interchange of trade. 

Further, it is, in its influence, an accessible instru- 
ment. It thrusts its power in some way within the 
reach of all. Strange to say, its efficacy does not de- 
pend on the amount of it in one's possession or owner- 
ship, nor even whether it be possible for him or not. 
It is the way in which one bears himself towards it, 
whether in his possession or ownership, or out of it — 
the motives with which he seeks it, and the uses to 
which he would put it— it is this that decides the in- 



SERMONS. 259 

fluence of this great factor on character. A poor man 
is under its training by means of his efforts to gain it, 
possibly by his envyings, or the bad uses of the little 
he has, as really as the rich man. All the perils of 
the love of gain are not on the side of the wealthy. A 
man may use it to debase himself, who is not worth a 
dime ; or he may use it to elevate himself, if he is 
worth millions. On the other hand, one may be 
helped by his poverty, or he may be ruined by his 
possessions. The rich and the poor are both trained 
b}^ this all but universal trainer, although in very 
different ways. But it would be difficult to say which 
are the most trained, or the best or the poorest trained. 
We see, then, how admirably contrived, in this par- 
ticular also, this instrument is for the training of the 
race, inasmuch as its presence or absence, its excess 
or deficiency, its easy abundance or smarting want, 
alike furnish the condition for the special trial to which 
Providence has consigned each man, and under which, 
at the peril of his soul, he must settle the question of 
character. 

Once more, it is a reactionary instrument. In itself, 
as we have seen, it has no moral character or quality 
— it is negative ; but it becomes charged with our own 
moral quality as we pursue it ; and, so charged, it re- 
acts upon us. Every man's possession, thus infused 
with his spirit, bears his own likeness, and so comes to 
have a separate educating quality of its own, and edu- 
cates him still further in his chosen way. 

Blood-stained dollars have the guilt, fatality, treach- 
ery, of accomplices after the fact stamped in their 
nature ; and follow, and haunt, and threaten the pos- 
sessor, like furies, beguiling him into other crimes, 
and finally betraying him. A miser's money is his 



260 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. 

double, and stimulates him, at sight or thought, like 
the society of a brother miser. A generous man's 
gains stand up before him like the angel Charity, ask- 
ing to be sent on some errand of mercy. A spend- 
thrift sees in every dollar he can get hold of a friend 
in sorry imprisonment, longing for release and indul- 
gence ; and he hastens to set it free as soon as possible, 
and follows it till it disappears. Gold has the moral 
color of its owner stamped upon it, and this, in turn, 
strikes through his hands as he handles it, and tinges 
his soul. As a river that overflows its banks leaves a 
deposit on shore, indicating the kind of soil it has run 
through and the kind of drift it bears, so the streams 
of Plutus leave a deposit all along the character, in 
each case showing what kind of a life they have issued 
from, and what kind of moral elements the}- are 
freighted with. Thus the property we have not but 
which we seek, as well as the property in our hands — 
property which, in the first instance, was entirely in- 
nocent and negative — becomes imbued with the quality 
of our own motives and aims as we seek or use it, and 
draws us after it. Many a man is turning into the 
moral complexion of his dollars. Witness the man of 
the saloon, sporting men, gamblers in stocks. Wit- 
ness the substantial yeoman, tradesman, profession- 
alise Witness the lover of his country, the lover of 
his race, the lover of Christ. Each has stamped back 
on himself the hue of himself — a hue which he first 
imparted to it. 

Such is the instrument which is so conspicuous in 
the moral training of men ; in its own nature innocent 
and passive ; perfectly flexible, and obedient to all the 
wishes of moral beings ; accessible to all, and ever pres- 
ent by its influence ; and capable of being charged by 



SERMONS. 26l 

the individual with a positive moral power to mould 
and fix his character. It is a wonderful device, sin- 
gularly adapted to beings of mixed natures like ours, 
to give us a fair trial, because subservient to freedom. 

Now, what are some of the ways in which we train 
ourselves by means of it ? 

We train ourselves by the motives with which we 
seek it. These may be any one of a million, by which 
different persons are impelled in its pursuit ; but what- 
ever one it is, the strain put upon that strengthens it. 
So in the pursuit of property, one is really put on a 
run towards the moral end pointed at in his motive, 
and the faster and the harder he runs for property the 
faster and the harder he runs into that moral enclosure, 
and shuts himself up in it. 

We train ourselves by the methods employe! in seek- 
ing it! All the moral and all the immoral methods 
await our bidding. We employ whichever we please * 
but those which we summon to our aid, whether the 
right or the wrong or the mixed, enter as powerful 
elements into the question of character. One unright- 
eous principle incorporated into our business, running 
in and out and combining its parts, like a needle and 
thread sewing a seam, is enough to stitch unrighteous- 
ness into a man's soul for eternity ; and if our business 
is bad in itself, then it becomes a sink into which we 
throw our immortality to go down to perdition. A 
righteous business, on the other hand, conducted in an 
upright way, helps the soul upward. 

We train ourselves by the uses to which we put our 
property. A person on a raft by means of a pole 
pushes himself along, raft and all, in a given direction 
towards an end. His headway is determined by his 
pushing. So a man and his property interests are 



262 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. 

morally aimed in a certain direction, and he advances 
toward it by property pushes — by expenditures here 
and there on the way ; and the nature and number of 
pushes, in no small degree, decide the character of 
the journey. One may use his money so that, as dollar 
after dollar goes, it will add momentum to his course 
downward, or so that it will send him upward. Con- 
secrated money acts on the soul like angels' wings; 
that spent in the service of sin like the wings of a 
demon. 

We train ourselves, further, by the way in which we 
bear the loss of property. Sometimes it vanishes sud- 
denty. If we then fret, murmur, quarrel with Provi- 
dence, become sour, we put on a Nissus shirt, which 
poisons and maddens the soul ; if we accept submis- 
sively, trustfully, bravely, the trial, and look above, it 
carries us above like a chariot of fire. Eoss is a sharp 
educator in the one way or the other. 

We train ourselves, also, by the objects to which we 
leave it. Persons who have propel, generally look 
forward to the objects that are finally to come into 
possession of it by inheritance, will or gift, and so far 
give their character an impulse in that direction. If 
one plans and provides a blessing for mankind, and 
arranges for a living agency to work for the glory of 
God when he is gone, he wraps himself up in the bene- 
fits of that purpose beforehand, and holds them in per- 
petuity. Every rich person, by making a will and 
anchoring himself to some grand charity, institution of 
Christian learning, or missionary enterprise, ma)' secure 
in this way a powerful impulse upward ; while he 
who thinks only of leaving his property to ignoble 
uses is borne downward by the unconscious gravita- 
tion of this thought. Every person of means, there- 



SERMONS. 263 

fore, should make his will,* not only for the purpose of 
fixing upon good objects to which his property shall 
go, but also to have the benefit during life of the up- 
lift that conies from the feeling that he holds his prop- 
erty in trust for grand interests looking to the glory of 
God. 

Such is the high office of property in connection 
with our earthly training, whether we have much of it, 
or little, or none. The instinct that prompts us to 
seek it, the fact that we are obliged to put ourselves 
in some kind of moral relation to it and handle more 
or less of it, and the fact that its absence tests charac- 
ter quite as much as its presence does, make it equally 
efficacious for this purpose, whatever the amount. It 
is not designed to have an independent educating pow- 
er, but to be obedient to the will of him who uses it 
without prejudicing his freedom. It does not lead us 
only as the horse we drive leads us. We should look 
upon it and the way we bear ourselves towards it, 
therefore, as involving all the sanctity and sublimit}^ 
of a means for defining our character. It is an instru- 
ment by the use of which we are to define our spirit, 
our disposition, our selfishness, — if we have it, — our 
pride, our covetousness, love of pleasure, want of prin- 
ciple, even dishonesty, passion, malice ; or, if we will 
it, our faith in God, love of right, generosity, desire to 
do good, and uprightness of heart. 

Think, my friends, as you go out from day to day 
into the arena in which you encounter the issues of 
property, that it is no mere playground for restless fac- 
ulties, no mere race-course with fierce competitors for 

* Dr. Dwinell, in his will, left bequests to the American Board of Com- 
missioners for Foreign Missions, the American Home Missionary Society 
and the Pacific Theological Seminary. 



264 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. 

an earthly prize, no mere work-shop in which to earn 
daily bread, no board of chance from which you hope 
to sweep in the stakes that will enable you to live in 
wantonness ; but a school, rather, in which you are to 
test and settle your character. Nay, think of it as a 
holy temple, in which, whatever others may do, you 
will worship, praise and serve God, and where you will 
adorn A^our soul with the practical principles of love 
and Godliness, so that when you go forth from it, you 
may go forth beautiful in soul and ennobled. The silk- 
worm weaves its covering of silk about it, in which it 
undergoes the change, and thence emerges with wings 
adapted for its new sphere and service. 

So live, so weave about you the threads that come 
from the relations of property — the threads of honest 
seekings, generous givings, pure usings and conse- 
crated holdings — that you may undergo, in the midst of 
this environment, the great transformation that will 
fit you for the life above ; so that, when you emerge 
from it, and leave it forever behind, 3^011 may have all 
the organs and preparations to go at once and be ever- 
more with Christ in the new sphere and home above. 



IV. 

♦UNCONSCIOUS HELP FROM GOD. 



"I taught Ephraim also to go, taking them by their arms ; but 
they knew not that I healed them. I drew them with the cords 
of a man, with bands of love." — Hosea n : 3-4. 

In an Italian painting the central figure is a small 
boy, said to represent humanity. The boy, possessed 
of luring passions and appetites and evil impulses, is 
thoughtless and unsuspicious. Before him in the dis- 
tance is Satan, waiting with malicious leer, fiendish 
exultation, and horrid looks, to have him come for- 
ward and fall into his hands. An angel descending 
near the boy, and unseen by him, thrusts a shield be- 
fore his eyes, so that he cannot see Satan nor his peril, 
and at the same time directs his attention upward, to 
safety in the skies. The effect of this invisible and 
supernatural interposition is to change the course of 
the boy, and lead him away from the destroyer. 

This is an illustration of the way in which God often 
interposes to save us from destruction and do us good 
without our knowledge. This habit of his is brought 
out in the text. The prophet represents God as tell- 
ing how he has taken care of his people from their na- 
tional infancy up, — how, like a mother of the olden 

*Preached in Sacramento, April 20, 1879, and subsequently in San Fran- 
cisco, Oakland and Grass Valley, Cala., in Orange, X. J., East Calais, Vt., 
and Honolulu. 
18 



266 ISRAEL EDSOX DWIXELL. 

time, he taught theni to walk, first taking them by the 
arms, then leading them by soft cords, and after that 
using easy and gentle bands, and when they had fallen 
and hurt themselves, had raised them up and healed 
them, — and all this, often without their knowledge, 
coming to them as an invisible presence, an ever alert 
and unknown benefactor. ' ' I taught Ephraim also to 
go, taking them by their arms ; but they knew not that 
I hmled them. I drew them with the cords of a man, 
with bands of love." This brings God before us in 
an interesting and beautiful light. 

My subject is Unconscious Help from God. 

It is not strange that God, who is love, and is every- 
where present, should have mysterious ways of fore- 
fending evil and doing us good. He is the soul of the 
world, and he thinks, plans, acts good, and in num- 
berless ways thwarts evil, giving it only a limited 
range. Even Herbert Spencer, who seems touched 
by a sense of the underlying beneficence, makes this 
back handed confession : ' ' There is no vice in the 
constitution of things. " No vice in the constitution of 
things ! No, no ! but a far-reaching, thoughtful, piti- 
ful, lurking, overtaking helpfulness. The mystery is 
not, with God 's goodness and wealth of resources and 
our limited capacity for comprehending his ways, that 
he should have methods of helping us and we not know 
them, but that we should be able to see so much of his 
kindness. The strangeness is not that there are hiding 
places in which he conceals his help all along the path- 
way of life, in nature, in events, in conditions, circum- 
stances and experiences ; but that so man}' of these 
interpositions come out from time to time, and reveal 
his hand. 

God meets us personally with his brooding care, as 



SERMONS. 267 

vigilantlj' and thoughtfully as, according to the text, 
he did the Hebrew nation. The New Testament lifts 
the individual into prominence, and makes him the 
mark of a specific oversight and training. He is not 
lost in the nation, or in the myriads belonging to the 
nations, or in the endless worlds and details of the uni- 
verse. Over each trusting soul, as it makes the jour- 
ney of life, is the glon T of the same unseen One that 
brooded over the exodus and the march through the 
wilderness — the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of 
fire by night, if only we had the eye to see it — shield- 
ing, training, blessing, chastening. If all the deliver- 
ances he works out for us were visible, if we could see 
all the instances of peril, when the great enem} r , with 
expectant looks, fiendish exultation and malignant 
leer, is waiting to have us fall into his hands, while 
God kindly interposes, diverting our thoughts and 
changing our course, we should have a wondrous 
picture of the now unrecognized tender ministries of 
our God. Life is full to the brim of this unrecognized 
presence and help. How many dangers have been in 
our way, and we have stood on their brink, likely to 
go over were it not for an unseen, averting hand ; but 
that hand was there and we escaped ! How many fatal 
diseases have been on their way to us, and something, 
a mystery to us, waved them aside, and we still live ! 
How many temptations have singled us out, at one 
time or another, and come straight for us like hungry 
lions ; and yet through some unaccountable influence 
they have been diverted to one side, or we have been 
drawn away just in time to escape the deadly spring ! 
How many mistakes and even sins of our own, which 
seemed about to ruin us, we have risen up out of un- 
expectedly, as if a sorrowing Friend, without our 



268 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. 

knowledge, had come in to arrest or soothe the conse- 
quences ! We say there is a recovering power in the 
realm of nature back of the ordinary forces at work,. so 
that if a derangement of her order takes place, this un- 
seen agency steps in, covers the wound, and produces 
a new order of health and symmetry over it. So in 
the kingdom of grace there is a kindly healing or help- 
ing power back of our lives, that comes to us to cover 
the wounds we inflict on ourselves, to bring about with 
our co-operation a new condition of moral health and 
vigor, and recover us from our sins. How many are 
strangely raised up after falling ! but they do not rec- 
ognize the Unseen One, as he stoops over them to free 
them from the snares their own guiltiness has sprung 
upon them. 

All dangers are not warded off ; all temptations are 
not disarmed ; every foe is not thwarted ; every grip 
of evil consequences is not relaxed. We might become 
presumptuous in that case. The kind Rescuer is care- 
ful to let us have smart enough as a motive for vigi- 
lance, and to bestow his invisible friendship only in a 
way calculated to make us do our best. 

' ' Underneath are the everlasting arms ' ' ; but he 
does not show them, and we cannot see just how the}- 
will lead us, or hold us up when otherwise we would 
stumble, or pull us out of our sins when down ; and so 
we walk carefulty as if unattended. If the Serpent, 
by our foolish intimacy with his resorts, is allowed to 
inflict a pang now and then, it only reminds us of our 
constant danger, and puts us the more on our guard . 
Ours is a befriended, not a cosseted life ; a watched 
and inspired, not a watched and weakened manhood. 
Our unseen Helper has his thought on our worth in 
the skies, not on our ease here, and adjusts his atten- 
tions accordingly. 



SERMONS. 269 

Moreover, the amount of God's help, hidden or oth- 
erwise, that we receive, is not a little dependent on 
our drawing near and looking to him for it. A truly 
loving and prayerful waiting on Him for mercies leads 
Him to give largely in all the ways of his giving, seen 
and unseen, open and hidden. The more we draw 
near to Him, the more He draws near to us, and scat- 
ters around us the overflowings and the hidings of his 
mercy. There is a mysterious power in the human 
soul, promised and given on condition of faith and 
prayer, to draw around it unknown blessings. In this 
way God, so to speak, goes on before us secretly, and 
charges our future with good before we come up to it. 
Calamities are thus averted, and we never see them ; 
evils are avoided, and we never suspect them ; bless- 
ings come strangefy into our possession that we had 
not thought of, rising like apparitions in unsuspected 
places. We discover, if we are thoughtful and prayer- 
ful, that in whatever way of duty we go, God has been 
there before us with numberless concealments of good, 
awaiting our coming. We find him, in nature, bury- 
ing supplies, as of coal and oil and artesian water, in 
secret caches, against our arrival, and surprising us 
with the lurkings of his fore -thoughtful love on every 
side ; in providence, scattering attentions and with- 
holding himself from observation, sending men to help 
us, and not letting them or us know that it was He 
who sent them ; covering in a storm-cloud, with thun- 
derings and lightnings, some of the most tender and 
delicate gifts ; in grace, attending us as a loving pres- 
ence, which, if we had faith enough, would enable us 
to hear him say, amidst our fears : "It is I, be not 
afraid! " in our weakness : " Lo, I am with you al- 
ways, even unto the end of the world," and in our 



270 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. 

need: "I will never leave thee nor forsake thee." 
When we discover these things, may we not well say, 
as did Isaiah, reciting the strange and unexpected 
methods of God's mercy, " Verily, thou art a God that 
hidest thyself, O God of Israel, the Savior ! ' ' 

What, now, should be the practical outcome of this 
wondrous truth ? Is our discovery of it to be a barren 
one ? Has it no practical meaning and use ? 

It should open deep fountains of gratitude. There 
are blessings enough that are open and apparent to ex- 
cite our warm appreciation, but when we perceive that 
these are only a small part of his ways of help and 
mercy ; that we see the rim only ; that his thoughtful- 
ness lies about us, like the air which we cannot see, — 
how our thoughts should go out to him in thankful- 
ness that we are in his hands ! In whatever way we 
look and as far as we look we find his kindly thought 
has been there before us, and we know that farther 
than we look or can look, there is still the same kind- 
ly thought, the same planning and doing and conceal- 
ing himself. This should touch our heart and awaken 
our lofty praise. 

This discovery should inspire confidence. We have 
troubles, perplexities, cares. We cannot see the way 
through. God does not reveal himself or show us the 
light. He hides himself. But we know it is his habit 
to scatter good in unknown ways all along our path. 
Hitherto He has healed us up to our faith and beyond 
it, and often when we knew not that he was doing it. 
Can we doubt now ? May we not know in advance 
that He who is the same yesterday, today and forever, 
is about us in these hidings, preparing some surprise 
of blessing ? How confidently, then, at all times, if 
we have yielded our hearts to Him, may we look into 



SERMONS. 271 

the future, since we know that God is there. Not 
to the extent of what we can see. No ! no ! But far 
more, working for us and getting mercies in readiness. 
We are marching up the God-lined avenue to the 
heavenly mansion. Whose heart should not beat with 
confidence and assurance ? How can one distrust when 
he finds himself in the hands of Him who is good be- 
yond all his revealed goodness, who plans for us be- 
3 r ond all his known plannings, and who helps us be- 
yond all his confessed workings, — far, far be3 T ond, away 
off in the receding vista ? 

This discover}^ should also lead to a corresponding 
kind of love and devotion. As God gives far beyond 
what is seen — throws the gift and hides himself — so 
we should give to his service not only this and that 
deed seen by men, but also invisible deeds, concealed 
activities of good will, the hidings of sympathy and 
desire for the advancement of his cause, the secret 
things of our souls. We cannot give and hide from 
God, but we can give and hide from man, and almost 
from ourselves. We should catch and reproduce ^o 
much of the spontaneous and multitudinous love of 
God, falling as the mist, that the left shall not know 
what the right hand does. Our devotion should go up 
like clouds of incense, the fragrance of which reaches 
far be} T ond the bounds of its visible progress. We 
should be so drawn toward Him by seeing what He is 
to us, that the spiritual substance of our worship shall 
be seen by God, mounting up to Him in wav} r , hidden 
columns, far beyond the blazing altar fires that men 
look upon. 

I have known a new mother to come into a family 
where there were children of various ages from three to 
twenty years, some of whom were reluctant to have 



272 ISRAEL EDSON DWINEEE. 

her come and to call her ' ' mother, ' ' but her tenderness 
and devotion were so hearty and sincere and thought- 
ful, springing from her warm and loving nature, and 
leaning to so many surprises and delicate revelations 
of her love to them, that before two years had passed 
she had captured all their hearts. The3 T could not help 
it. They would have been untrue and unkind to 
themselves, not to respond to such goodness and wis- 
dom. Shall we have had God's love, hearty, constant, 
full of surprises and delicate attentions, all these years 
— twenty, is it? or thirty? forty? sixty? and not 
been won yet ? Is there no yielding, no response, no 
softening of heart ? O Lord, dry not up this won- 
drous fountain of thy mercy 1 Take not away tlty 
patience and forbearance ! Try us a little longer ! 
Cut not down yet the barren fig tree. Let it alone this 
year also ; dig about it, dress it still, and let the invis- 
ible dews of thy love, the light of the sun seen and of 
the sun clouded fall on it ; and if it bear fruit, well. 
Thy wondrous love, O Lord, is a great deep, a great 
height ! When we can count all the sands on the sea- 
shore ; when we can tell all the stars in the sky ; when 
we can enumerate all the particles in the air ; then may 
we form some estimate of the outflowings of thy love ! 
But, O God, we can praise thee, we can love thee. 
The insect's eye can be opened towards the broad 
heavens. Help us to love toward thee ! 



V. 

*GOD'S SAYING SHOULD BE OUR DOING. 



"Now, theft, whatsoever God hath said unto thee, do." — Gen. 
ji : 16. 

This is safe advice. There is no risk in my repeat- 
ing it, or in your following it. It is a safe rule to adopt 
everywhere. " Whatsoever God hath said unto thee, 
do." The only difficulty about it, practically, is in 
knowing that God speaks to us, and in having the 
delicacy and tact to discriminate what he says, and 
not mistake it for other things, or other things for that, 
and then doing it. 

You have the outlines of my thought for this morn- 
ing. 

The first thing is, Does God speak to us? Yes, in 
many ways. 

It would relieve us of much embarrassment if He 
had some peculiar sign about his way of doing it which 
could not be mistaken, — if, e.g., He spoke with one 
kind of audible voice, and men with another. But 
this would be a mechanical system of training, and 
God's system is spiritual, appealing to faith, trust, and 
love. Yet in a spiritual way God speaks to human 
hearts and consciences, as really and authoritatively as 
he did to Abraham or Moses, — not now in ear-language, 
but heart-language. 

* Preached iti Saerameuto April 17, 1881. 



274 ISRAEL KDSON DWINKLL. 

There are messages to us in his written Word. All 
the principles of duty to God, man, and self laid down 
there are his messages to us, as distinctly and definitely 
as to those to whom they first came. This covers the 
whole method of salvation through Jesus Christ, and 
the essence of practical religion. The Bible is God's 
line of telegraphing to us ; and through it he tele- 
graphs to you what you need as a soul, — not the 
actions you need to do, but the spirit, the motives, the 
affections, the aims, the principles, you need to have 
as a man, — not what you need as the inhabitant of this 
place, or that, or belonging to this race or that race, 
but as a man, — not as living in the first century or the 
twentieth, but as a man, — not as a wise man or a weak 
one, but simply as a man, — not as old or young, but 
as a man. Do not forget that in the Bible he is simply 
telegraphing to you as a man ; and it matters not on 
such a point whether the telegraphic line be long or 
short, whether it reach from Christ to those about Him 
on the earth, as during the Sermon on the Mount, or 
all the way from the first century down to the nine- 
teenth or the one hundredth ; the message has the same 
pertinency and directness to man as a man. When 
man ceases to be a man on earth, and has grown into 
something beyond, and has none of the needs ofaman, 
this telegraph will be wound up, or cease to deliver 
messages ; but till then, to all to whom it comes it will 
say, direct from Christ's heart, " Come unto me all ye 
that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you 
rest." 

There are also messages through conscience. The 
right, the pure, the good, which conscience sees and 
urges us to seek — I mean the truly right, pure, good, 
that which is seen to be such by an enlightened con- 



SERMONS. 275 

science, not that which is imagined to be such by a 
blinded conscience. This is God's will and thought to 
us in reference to the practical matters of ever}' day. 
God fills out through the spaces and blanks left in the 
written Word. God speaks through such a conscience 
just as truly, though not in the same mechanical way, 
as a musician acting on the key-board communicates 
his thought through the instrument, and it comes forth 
in the notes of music much more fully than it appears 
on the written score. God has put the conscience in 
the soul, that he may thus speak through it and round 
out his meaning. We may have allowed the instru- 
ment to get out of tune somewhat, and often are not 
particular to distinguish between what proceeds from 
it and other sounds. Yet there are true divine notes 
issuing from it, in reference to the filling out beyond 
what is in the Bible, the outline of practical duties. 

Then there are at times direct suggestions from the 
Spirit of God. The veil between the Good Spirit and 
our spirit is not so thick and heavy but that there are 
movings and intimations of his pleasure through it, as 
you have seen the form of a person as he passed along 
on the other side of a curtain and brushed it. You 
may call them movings of the Good Spirit, suggestions, 
intimations, inspirations, — no matter ; you have felt 
them. They seem dropped down from above. They 
come with the tinge and tone of a supernatural origin, 
now as reproofs, now calls to courage and hopefulness 
and trust, now as illuminations, and now as stimulus to 
duty. Ah ! do not attempt to erase or conceal their 
divine origin, or the divine superscription on them. 
God is nearer to us at such times than we may sup- 
pose, and we do wrong to misuse his presence. 

Again, God speaks to us through the words and lives 



276 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. 

•of his people, the ongoings of his providence and nature. 
There are out-gleamings around particular words and 
examples and occurrences and sights at times, as if a 
divine light were put under them — and there is, — 
and they shine down to the waiting and appreciative 
heart as illuminated messages from above. Look back 
over life to certain experiences that have not faded 
out. Do you not remember the meaning there was 
once in that good man's words, that saint's life, or 
that pleading look, or that warm grasp ? Have you 
forgotten how the interests of eternity rayed out from 
that death, and said to you : " Prepare to meet thy 
God? " or how once a meaning at other times kept 
back shot out from the stars, or flowers, or mountains, 
or gorges, or falls, or ocean, and you found yourself 
in the Divine presence ? Nature and providence and 
humanity have their illuminations, and they are never 
so bright and holy as when God shines out through 
them on the waiting soul ; for God is not so veiled 
behind his works but that He at times lifts the veil to 
look in our face. 

Thus the Good Spirit is all about us, passing in or 
ready to pass in heavenly messages. We are not so 
orphaned and bereft of the Divine Fatherhood, that he 
has withdrawn all his fresh communications from us. 
Nay, nay; he scatters them as seeds of life with a boun- 
tiful hand, and though we may not welcome them, and 
though, as in the natural world, millions of these 
divinely-shed seeds may perish to one that grows, yet 
they are all fresh products of his interest and goodness, 
and adapted to put his thought in our thought, and 
draw our will to his will. 

The next thing is : "How can we know the mes- 
sages that come from God ? " Maii} T of them come, as 



SERMONS. 277 

we have seen, along human or earthly instruments, 
side by side, often of earthly voices. How shall we 
discriminate them ? We need some test, some means 
of identification. We have it. It is, first of all, the 
Bible. That is the touch-stone. Whatever is contrary 
to the spirit and genius of that, whatever conflicts 
with the methods and principles of spiritual life therein 
outlined, however plausible or beautiful or alluring it 
may be, you ma}^ know is a voice from below. Men 
have followed voices many times, calling them the 
voices of God, that have led away from Revelation out 
into fanaticism, or intolerance, or corruption, or vice, 
or crime ; and followed them down to the death that 
never dies. But I have never known or heard of a 
man who followed an impulse that strongly beset and 
moved him as from God, that harmonized with the 
spirit of the Bible, who was not led nearer to God by 
it, giving evidence in the result that the voice was a 
voice of God. 

We have also a secondary test, which may be used 
under the Bible, but not alone. It is conformity to 
the pure, the good, the noble, the godI}\ Whatever 
impulse draws us towards this, if it be the truly pure, 
good, noble, godly, and thus indirectly harmonious 
with Scripture, we may know is an impulse from God. 
It may come along to us across an earthly instrument, 
but the message communicates God's thought, ex- 
presses his will, and agrees with his previous written 
instructions, and we cannot resolve it into the mean- 
ingless clicking of the machine employed in sending 
it. When you go into a telegraph office and hear the 
clicking, you may recognize no intelligence back of 
the strange sounds, — you may at first only perceive 
electricity and machinery and lines of wire, — but when. 



278 ISRAEL E'DSON DWINKLL. 

all at once a definite message, click by click, is copied 
and handed out to you, giving the thought and will of 
a friend on the other side of the continent, and har- 
monizing and dovetailing with the facts given in a 
fuller letter previously received, } t ou see something 
more than the instrument, you see the intelligence that 
has flashed its thought to you ; your friend is commu- 
nicating with you, and you do not resolve the result 
into electricity, but have a message from your friend. 
So when a divine thought comes into your mind, a 
divine impulse, along a falling star, a rainbow, a fu- 
neral procession, a remark, a sermon, a recollection, 
agreeing with Revelation, fitting its facts, and enforc- 
ing its duties, you may know it comes from the divine 
friend. Do not resolve it into a product of the instru- 
ment. 

You see, then, my friends, that in consequence of 
the multitude of these inflowing messages and the pos- 
sibility and ease of identifying them, the advice we 
have before us furnishes a most fertile practical rule. 
* ' Whatsoever God hath said unto thee, do. " It is the 
counsel for every day and hour, wherever there is a 
right and a wrong, a good to be done or left undone ; 
for there, however our human sense or weakness may 
name it, God speaks. 

We should be very tender and observant towards 
those thronging but gentle intimations. If we are rude 
towards them, coarse, unappreciative, earthly, we may 
not only fail to catch the divine ring, the divine intel- 
ligence on the other side of them, and so lose the em- 
phasis of the communication, but we finally lose the 
connection and the communications themselves. On 
the other hand, if we cherish and obey these voices, 
this will become more distinct and marked, and we 



SERMONS. 279 

shall have more of them. To keep in communion 
with them, therefore, ' ' Whatsoever God hath said un- 
to thee, do." Obey conscience in little things, be- 
cause you hear God behind, saying " Do it." Follow 
the impulse to true benevolence daily, because you 
hear God behind, saying ' ' Do it. ' ' Cherish every rev- 
erent thought, every aspiration to a pure and noble 
manhood, every drawing towards faith, charity, piety, 
because God is under them and speaking through 
them, — and soon you will feel that your whole moral 
and spiritual life is brought into direct relations to God, 
and his authority and influence everywhere reach you. 

Further, the habit of doing what you are divinely 
prompted to do will very quickly lead you to God. It 
is not by great occasions and great strides that you can 
best vindicate a disposition to approach him, but by 
doing just the things before you, great or small, to 
which he calls. Obedience is shown in obeying, not 
in waiting for great opportunities. If you should tell 
a child to pick up a pin, and he should refuse to do it, 
and say he should wait till he was told to do a man's 
work or do some great thing, his spirit would be no 
more inconsistent than that of those who refuse to obey 
God in the little things of current duty enforced by 
these small voices of God, and wait for grand chances. 
To be true to Him, therefore, " Whatsoever God hath 
said unto thee, -do. ' ' Everything which comes to you 
with that peculiar emphasis — ' ' He hath said unto 
thee" — do it. The habit leads upward. 

Moreover, this disposition is itself pleasing to God. 
It secures his favor and sympathy at once. He likes 
and rewards the teachableness, the faithfulness, the 
devotion. He says, " That is my child ; he has respect 
unto my commandments ; I will watch over Jiim as the 
apple of mine eye. ' ' 



280 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. 

Of course, also, there is an unspeakable satisfaction 
in such a habit of obedience. When }^ou have sifted 
out the other messages and impulses by means of the 
safe tests, and have the clearly divine will left, and 
then act on these messages, you know you have some- 
thing solid under you ; 3^ou know you are on the right 
side, that you have the approval of God, and that your 
labors will be at once most beautiful and most benefi- 
cent. To have no internal misgivings and to be as- 
sured of the best and most glorious outward results, 
therefore, ' 'Whatsoever God hath said unto thee, do. ' ' 

Once more, if you should start today honestly doing 
this — honestly finding out what God says, and then 
honestly doing it, — it will mark a crisis in your spirit- 
ual history, if that crisis has not already been passed. 
The moment you begin to do what God says because 
He says it and for his sake, not because it is the teach- 
ing of conscience or nature or events, the great revolu- 
tion within has begun, and you start for the skies and 
above them. If you start on the purpose and principle 
to do all that God tells }^ou, it makes no difference 
whether the first step is giving a cup of cold water, or 
following Christ as James and Peter and John did upon 
the Mount, it leads along the same line of obedience to 
the same result ; and that true starting is the mount 
of transfiguration to your soul. The act may be small, 
but the motion, the principle, is grand, and eternal 
things turn on it. You need no imposing event, no 
wonderful providence, no peculiar and rare combina- 
tion of circumstances, no rush and roar of powers, 
divine or otherwise, to furnish an occasion that shall 
write your name among the sons of God. Adopt this 
rule, and it is done ; for by that act you step out of 
the old dominion of self-pleasing and self-seeking into 



SEKMONS. 28l 

one in which God is the center and end ; you cross the 
border-line and enter the kingdom of the sons of God. 
My friends, this principle has brought us where you 
see it has a most delightful and blessed issue. It issues 
in friendship with God, — eternal life, and heaven. The 
principle is itself broad, — obedience to God in all things. 
" Whatsoever God hath said unto thee, do. " I would 
not abate the importance or urgency of the rule any- 
where, but would remind you of the special and tran- 
scendent importance of observing it in relation to every 
intimation of direct duty to God. If you slacken any- 
where, slacken not here. Whatsoever calls and prompt- 
ings you receive towards prayer, the Sanctuary, the 
Sabbath, the Church, the Son of God, — whatever draw- 
ings towards faith, submission, love, — whatever con- 
victions of duty are breathed into your spirit from time 
to time, in reference to the hereafter ; whatsoever God 
says to you in his Word or by his Spirit directly per- 
taining to salvation, — oh ! give the most anxious heed 
to all this, for it is of supreme moment to you. Ob- 
serve all intimations of God's will, but fail not of those 
which He Himself is careful to emphasize as He does 
no others, which point you to the Savior. Remember 
this is the end to which all God's voices are designed 
and adapted sooner or later to lead. They all call you 
towards the Savior ; and if y 011 follow even the lowest 
and remotest, one voice will lead you up to another 
and give place to it, till combined they conduct you to 
Him. Therefore, when God calls you to Him, at once 
take the cross-cut, and do not go round by star, and 
w T aterfall, and flower, and conscience, and humanity ; 
come at once to Christ, and have the sense of pardon 
and acceptance immediately, instead of groping on in 
the lower reaches of obedience. By listening to the 
19 



282 ISRAEL EDSON DWINKLL. 

religious calls you may strike at once for the heights 
of salvation, where you can sing the song of the re- 
deemed : " I know that my Redeemer liveth. " Cherish, 
then, above all else the intimations of religious duty, 
the leadings to the place of prayer, the promptings to 
reverence and honor God, and to bow the soul to the 
reigning and saving grace of Jesus. 



VI. 

* " LEAD ME TO THE ROCK.' 



41 Lead me to the Rock that is higher than I." — Psalm 61 : 2. 

Introduction. — In the ancient civilizations, in time of 
danger, men fled to high rocks or cliffs, or walled 
towns. They shunned the open country and plains. 
Hence it was a great thing with a people if the} 7 could 
build their city on a high hill, and have a citadel on 
the highest point of that, where the} 7 could be com- 
paratively safe when pressed by their enemies. 

The imagery of the text grows out of this custom. 
Let us apply the truth suggested by it, and lying back 
of it, to our own times, and to human needs now. 

I. The first thing suggested is that man naturally 
has a sense of weakness and danger. 

(a.) Amid the physical forces of nature — the storms, 
floods, cyclones, earthquakes — he is as nothing. 

(b.) The mighty powers of Providence, generally 
restrained, but sometimes let loose — pestilence, famine, 
sickness, accidents — often hedge us in, and we find 
ourselves met with a mightier will than our own, be- 
fore which we are nothing. 

(c.) We are as nothing before the wild passions and 
contentions of men. 

* Outline of a sermon preached extemporaneously in Plymouth Avenue 
Church, Oakland, March 16, 1890, and repeated at Pilgrim Church, Oakland, 
and at Vacaville." 



284 ISRAEL EDSON DWINEEL. 

(d.) There is at times a sense of fearful danger from 
the fact that we are sinners. We have incurred pen- 
alties that are already pursuing us, and feel that more 
fearful retributions will overtake us by and by. 

From such experiences of weakness and peril we 
want a retreat, and cry out : "Lead me to the Rock 
that is higher than I. " 

II. The second point is, that nothing inferior or on 
a level with us can be the refuge we need. An equal 
would be swayed and driven hither and yon, as well 
as ourselves, by these mighty forces to which we are 
exposed, (a.) We cannot entrust, therefore, our im- 
mortal souls to any man or combination of men. (b.) 
Nor can we trust them to law or nature ; for they are 
beneath us, blind, unconscious, and of themselves move 
on with steady and irreversible tread over friend and 
foe. They can make no adaptations. They cannot 
come to our needs, (c.) Nor can we entrust ourselves 
to our doings or moralities. They cannot overcome 
our sense of guilt, nor satisfy our longings for assurance 
of safety. We cry, therefore, " Lead us to the Rock 
that is higher than I." 

III. When we have this experience, nothing short 
of God can be the refuge we seek. We are so consti- 
tuted, being made in the image of God, that when we 
come to a sense of our real need we cannot stop short 
of him. No angel can satisfy us, no archangel, no 
" principality or power " above. We must have God 
— one who has made us, to whom we are responsible 
— our Father. Our cry is, ' ' Lead me to the Rock that 
is higher than /. ' ' 

IV. The Rock is accessible through the incarnation 
of the Son of God. In this way its base rests on the 
earth. God in this manner is accessible to everv hu- 



SERMONS. 285 

man being. There we may mount up to Him and have 
the protection of his omnipotence, his grace, his friend- 
ship. He who finds Christ, finds the Father. 

V. But, oh ! the weakness of human nature, even 
when it has high desires. We cannot go to the ' ' Rock 
that is higher than I " alone. We need help and cry 
out, ' ' Lead me, oh lead me ! ' ' This is the very office 
of the Spirit. How wonderful ! Christ, the Rock, is 
not indifferent. He yearns as much as we to have us 
sheltered and protected on the Rock, and sends down 
the Divine Spirit to draw us to it, and to create in us 
the desire to he led. 

Conclusion. Behold the Rock, and flee to it ! 



VII. 



* CHURCH FELLOWSHIP — WHAT DOES IT 
MEAN AMONG CONGREGATION ALISTS ? 

It means all it means in the way of fellowship be- 
tween churches in other denominations ; and it means 
a great deal more than in any other denomination ex- 
cept such as have the same polity. 

I. Let us, then, briefly glance at it in this general 
aspect, simply as fellowship between sister churches, 
before we consider its distinctive use in our polity. 

(a) Fellowship is certainly a blessed principle in 
itself. Churches which cherish fellowship toward one 
another, which have the interpla}- of confidence, love 
and devotion which this implies, no matter what the 
principles of organization which bind them together, 
are in a happ}- state. Jealousies and rivalries are ex- 
tinguished. The}- take pleasure in one another's pros- 
perity. The}' constitute a loving sisterhood. 

(b) Such a condition, moreover, illustrates the 
spirit of the kingdom of Christ. There may be, indeed, 

*This paper has been prepared as a family paper, with the confidences and 
the frankness intended only for the famiry ear. Lest persons of other 
families should be overmuch troubled by anything said, the writer wishes 
to say that he confesses that the}- all have special things which they con- 
gratulate themselves for in their private family talks, which seem to them 
equally to their advantage ; and he commends them to a recollection of 
this for their comfort now. — I. E. D. 

This address was the last literary work of its author. It was prepared 
for the General Association of Southern California, at its meeting held in 
Santa Barbara. His failing strength prevented his attendance. The paper 
was read by another May 15. 1S90, three weeks previous to his death. 



288 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. 

fellowship on a lower ground ; as, in persecution, in 
putting down heresy, in making proselytes, pushing a 
creed or a polity. But these are counterfeits. True 
church fellowship — the only kind I have in mind — is 
around Christ and breathes the spirit of the Gospel. 
Dead churches have it not, false churches have other 
ambitions, wayward churches are chasing mirages. 
Churches that see in one another the face of Christ, and 
join hearts, bring down heaven on earth. 

(c) Again, fellowship is a great power > as thus 
witnessed. Its presence is a divine touch thrilling the 
world. No one can witness the spectacle without be- 
ing moved by it. The moral power of a single Christly 
church is great ; that of a group of Christly churches 
many times greater ; and the moral power of such a 
group illustrating the celestial quality of fellowship 
through a denomination inconceivable greater still. 
Fellowshipping churches are in the eyes of men the 
march of a massed army ; unfellowshipping, the mere 
demonstration of individual scouts. 

Congregational churches share in all these general 
advantages of fellowship as much as any other denom- 
ination ; and naturally, more than the compact de- 
nominations, because thrown more upon them in their 
intercourse. The compact denominations are held 
together by other powers, and are thus kept in com- 
mon march and rhythm. Yet often the absorption of 
interest in those powers, and the friction resulting 
from them, arrest fellowship. 

Congregationalists, on the other hand, depend on 
fellowship for their denominational existence, and so 
cultivate it. 

II. Fellowship, therefore, plays a much more prom- 
inent part in Congregationalism than the general ad- 



SERMONS. 289 

vantages of it which I have named. It is our organizing 
principle. 

But before speaking of it in this way, as the organ 
izing or structural principle binding our churches to- 
gether, I wish to call attention to the position it really 
holds in the individual church — a unique point, and 
generally overlooked. 

We speak of the self-government of the Congrega- 
tional Church. This term, if applied in a loose, pop- 
ular sense, is proper enough, but strictly it is inappli- 
cable. The principle of government is a very modified 
principle in our churches. It is not government at all. 
There is no absolute governing power lodged anywhere 
in them — in the pastor, the officers, the majority, the 
Church. We say " the majority rules,"' and it does, 
but it is not because it has a right to rule. In ruling, 
in the Congregational way, the Church does not gov- 
ern the minority, or even the members voting with it, 
or itself. But it expresses in chis way the mind of the 
great number, and all have agreed to accept that as 
settling the course to be pursued. It is really a system 
of fellowship, voiced by majorities, but to be voluntarily 
followed by all. Nobody is governed. All govern 
themselves, but in the methods and within the bounds 
of the expressed opinion of the majority. 

To particularize : The doctrine of the church is not 
imposed on the members ; it is a fellowship of doctrine. 
The officers are not clothed with authority, but repre- 
sent and s^rve a fellowship. Discipline is a helpful or 
corrective procedure, not a judicial process. Aggres- 
sive movements are the output of common counsels and 
devotion, not the result of ecclesiastical orders. 

This overlooked idea of fellowship in the individual 
church accounts for many things in Congregationalism 



290 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. 

distinguishing it from the authoritative denominations ; 
as, the freedom and individuality of thought it encour- 
ages ; the impossibility of cramping Congregationalists 
in a narrow denominational spirit ; their readiness to 
give freely to outside Christian objects ; and the ease 
with which our ministers and laymen, not realizing the 
difference between a system of fellowship and one of 
authority till it is too late, go into other folds. 

Congregationalists, thus, are nowhere governed, 
either in the separate church or in the sisterhood. No- 
where ; never. The idea is absolutely foreign to them. 
They have never had a taste of that experience. They 
are familiar in the church with the restrictions of fel- 
lowship. They have proposed measures that did not 
carry. They have been with majorities and minorities 
in reference to policies, doctrines and men. But only 
Christ and his word and their own self-hood govern 
them. Theirs is a polity of fellowship even in the sin- 
gle church, not of government. 

But fellowship is our organizing denominational 
principle. We are now prepared to consider its position 
and influence, as such a principle, in uniting the 
churches and making a sisterhood of them. In our 
economy this is the mystic wand that, moved among 
them, groups them together and makes of them one 
body. It is our only denominational organizing prin- 
ciple. It is not constitutions that bind our churches 
together, or laws, or resolutions, or creeds, or traditions, 
or heredity, or any ecclesiastical power ; only the mys- 
tic bonds of fellowship, as soft as silk, as strong as iron, 
as invisible as light. When a church decides to be a 
Congregational church, it takes on itself, without wait- 
ing for hint or spur from anyone else, to illustrate the 
law of love towards other Congregational churches. It 



SERMONS. 291 

accepts the principle of mutual helpfulness — puts itself 
on the methods and within the limits of that principle. 
It says, " I will be a sister with sisters, and fulfill all 
the sisterly offices. I recognize no superior — to hold 
me up to this — but the unseen Taskmaster. I do it 
voluntarily. It shall come about by my own virtue and 
sense of honor." 

When a church comes with this spirit, and knocks, 
and the sisterhood lets her in, recognizing her sisterly 
qualities, it is a regular Congregational church, and as 
long as it retains this spirit it remains so. If at any 
future time it should abandon the law of love and help- 
fulness, and seek only its own things, it would break 
the invisible bond binding it to the others, and it would 
cease to be a Congregational church in reality, what- 
ever it might be in name. It is no longer of us. 
''They went out from us, but they were not of us." 
By that act it shows that it is destitute of our distin- 
guishing quality-; and that is the end of it, in the sis- 
terhood. 

That is the way Congregational churches begin, and 
that is the way they continue. It is putting themselves 
down to love and helpfulness toward one another. It 
is a system in wmich it is left to the voluntary disposi- 
tion of each church to discharge its duties to the others. 
It is a system of spontaneity, autonomy, self-devotion, 
unenforced loyalty. 

You see, then, that Congregationalism assumes as 
conditions of its highest success an attainment in vir- 
tue and intelligence far out toward the Celestial City. 
It calls for Christians to reveal its highest worth, ma- 
ture in years and wisdom, planning, of their own ac- 
cord, for the general good, without being lashed on by 
any outside party. It is not a polit} r that shows its 



292 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. 

best with those who must be handled because they can 
but poorly handle themselves, but with those who are 
quick to see duties and opportunities, as well as bless- 
ings and advantages. It is a polity, therefore, that 
sharpens its eyes with schools, colleges and seminaries, 
and seeks to draw around itself the best means of grace 
and wisdom. It is a system that buttresses itself with 
the celestial things, that it may show the celestial 
things in its own grain and stuff in public relations. 

While, however, Congregationalism is a polity which 
seems to throw itself with such abandon on the spon- 
taneity and good will of the churches for denomina- 
tional integrity and vigor, it is a system of great recip- 
rocal expectations. The churches look to one another 
that each should be found in the serried ranks. This 
expectation carries with it great moral power, because 
it is founded on conscience, on the equities of the case, 
on the public sense of what fellowship requires. Few 
churches care to resist it ; they have already set them- 
selves down to it in their first vows. There is more 
power in it, for churches up to the Congregational 
strain, than mandates or rescripts for those under ec- 
clesiastical or hierarchical drill ; for it is a power 
addressed to self-respect and love for Christ. 

If, however, this proves unavailing, the faithful 
churches have no coercive power. They can advise, 
and remonstrate, and, these failing, weep and wring 
their hands, and at last bow out the undutiful sister by 
withdrawing fellowship. But they have no anathemas 
to hurl, no penances to impose, no limbo of suspension 
into wmich to consign her, no ecclesiastical court in 
which to placard her delinquencies. They can throw 
around her only the warm and tender persuasions of 
love and goodness — motives that sway the kingdom of 



SKRMONS. 293 

God — and then leave her. If they part with her, they 
part with her high up on the border land of the celes- 
tial kingdom, not down in the region of church wrang- 
ling and human passion. 

This system of expectation is not only good for se- 
curing co-operation and unity, but for moral and spirit- 
ual training as well. An atmosphere of social expec- 
tation of vice or crime is powerful to drag down ; of 
an} T worldly movement, to draw into it ; of high pur- 
pose and noble endeavor, to inspire in that way. Ex- 
pectation throws innumerable warm arms about a 
church which softly draw it after them ; for it is ex- 
pectation of high things, of illustrating the law of love 
and being true and helpful in all social relations ; and 
this expectation, in which a Congregational church is 
focused in the midst of sister churches, is one of the 
finest educating influences. It appeals to all that is 
noble and generous and Christly. It has on its side, 
at the start, the conscience, the reason, the faith, and 
the foregone commitment, in general, of those who are 
the center of such observant and tender interest. How 
can a church so surrounded and stimulated — affection- 
ate and sisterly eyes looking on and expecting noble 
things — fail to do its best ? It is put on its honor. The 
stimulus comes through its sympathies, its friendships, 
its loves, from those whom it esteems and cannot 
grieve. 

No such educational power passes over the line of 
churches joined together ecclesiastically as some great 
physical organism, and comes to the individual church. 
What comes to it, in such cases, is a decree, a deliver- 
ance, a rule ; and it comes with authority. It is some- 
thing about which it has no option, and it is unprofit- 
able to have an opinion. It must be obeyed. That is 



294 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. 

the beginning and end of the matter. Such things are 
likely to come with a thud, not as a hand-shake ; and 
there is little value in them as a training agency in the 
higher attainments of church life, only in securing 
instant unity of denominational movement and mass- 
ing material force. In systems which depend so much 
on organization, and in which the thought is so much 
absorbed on that and the parties working it, there is 
little room for the play of the quickening divine forces 
of reciprocal love. Pulses of human authority beat 
along the articulated line, not the spiritual forces of 
the Gospel. And the churches under the sway of such 
influences alone grow up into the measure of the stat- 
ure of the fullness of the denomination, rather than of 
Christ. Other influences may counteract this natural 
drift, but this is the tendency of the polity. 

Fellowship, then, which is the organizing principle 
of the Congregational sisterhood, is a high principle, 
well out towards Christ, and making large demands 
on piet}^ and wisdom ; but which, while gentle and 
amiable, is potent, greatly helpful and educational, and 
quickly lifting up those on a lower plane, who adopt 
it and have fair opportunities, to the Congregational 
strain. 

We are now prepared to take this principle and trace 
some of its workings in binding the churches together. 

Before considering its more positive and demonstra- 
tive forms — its definite precedents and traveled high- 
ways — let us consider its brooding spirit. We want to 
see what this principle with which we are dealing is, in 
itself, in its ideal quality. We want to see it lapping 
the churches around with its mystic power, drawing 
them together and making them one, in ways too sub- 
tle to be catalogued, too effective to be denied. It is 



SKRMONS. 295. 

like an atmosphere charged with an extra amount ot 
oxygen or electricity, which you do not see, but whose 
silent effects are felt by every living thing. 

The invisible element, the uncatalogued element, in 
the domestic love of a happy home, is the atmosphere 
of it, the thousand nameless things, the gentle atten- 
tions, the thoughtful anticipations, the unwearied de- 
votion, the radiated rather than expressed love ; and 
this counts up in the happiness of the home far more 
than the catalogued element, the good-night kisses, 
the good-morning salutations, and the regular discharge 
of domestic duty. 

So when fellowship throws its mystic influence over 
the ch arches, it tempers and adjusts their feelings and 
conduct towards one another, shaping all and toning 
all ; and this is the elixir of their relationship. Other 
things are the utilities ; this radiated love, this kindly 
glance, this cordial hand-shake, this warm heart-beat, 
known to be throbbing in sympathy, though the mouth 
b^ dumb — this is bliss. It works with the gentleness 
of light, the certainty of gravitation, the subtilty of 
electric forces ; but it works always helpfully, stimulat- 
ingly, to fulfill the law of Christ. 

For the denomination that puts itself on this prin- 
ciple does not suspend its existence on a sentiment or 
an impulse having a human origin, but on a sentiment 
and an impulse originating in Christ. Christ is the 
living, active source of true fellowship ; and the 
churches, receiving it from him, extend it to one an- 
other. The earth and the planets keep in their orbits 
under the unseen attraction of the sun, each true to 
the system, under that mighty central spell. So the 
churches keep in their sisterly places and discharge 
their duties under the influence of this principle com- 
ing from Christ. 



296 ISRAEL KDSON DWINELL. 

But to depict or suggest all the play of its kindly 
operations and beneficent offices would be to show all 
the ways in which the light of the sun touches and 
helps living things in the animal world and the land- 
scape about us. 

If, however, I were to take you to a place where you 
could catch a breath of the quality of fellowship in 
Congregational churches, in distinction from that in 
authoritative systems, I would select the regular meet- 
ings of their delegates in the state and local associations 
or conferences, or the National Council. In an y of 
these meetings the subtle aroma of fellowship fills the 
air like the perfume from a bed of violets, or from an 
orange grove in blossom. It is this that makes our 
meetings on such occasions so delightful. There are 
no rivalries, no animosities, no prizes for personal am- 
bition, no struggles for leadership, no wrangling about 
legislative measures, judicial decisions, questions of 
discipline. All these issues are ruled out ; and the ques- 
tions are questions of excitation, advice, fellowship. 
Any one who steps out of our meetings into one in 
which the hot issues of authority are waged sees at 
once the painful contrast. He has gone from the com- 
munion of brothers to the contests and heat of parti- 
sans. If there is just as much fraternal feeling in the 
members when they come together, their business does 
not permit a display of it, does not cultivate it, is not 
calculated to lift them all up into spiritual unity around 
Christ, and to dismiss them in a glow of love. 

While, therefore, fellowship lies among the churches 
like sunshine in the lap of spring, reviving and quick- 
ening everything, regulating all their intercourse with 
the sweet grace of love where it has its proper sway, 
there are certain formal, historical methods of its appli- 



SERMONS. 297 

cation which have become common law. They have 
reached this dignity from their great utility and fre- 
quent use. Usage, here as elsewhere, crystallizes into 
a kind of law. It is very different, however, from Pres- 
byterian, Episcopalian or Methodist denominational 
law. It is flexible, elastic, fluid, advisory, without 
absolute grip or rigidity. Yet, as I have said, it is at- 
tended with a mightv expectation, which is effective. 

It is simply the Congregational way of getting the 
proper things done voluntarily. 

Coming to these crystallized forms of church fellow- 
ship, we find ourselves on the beaten track of Congre- 
gationalism and amidst familiar sights. We can hurry 
our pace. We notice the following : 

I. COUNCILS. 

These are called substantially for two reasons : To 
give advice and help in reference to organizing a 
church, or settling or dismissing a pastor, or in refer- 
ence to the adjustment of some difficult}'. The under- 
lying idea in these cases is, that the question about 
which help is asked is one which really involves the 
welfare of the denomination. This is obvious in rela- 
tion to organizing a church or settling a pastor ; for 
they are to be constituent parts of Congregationalism 
in the region, and the other churches have a vital in- 
terest in the kind of men and churches coming into 
their ranks to take part with them in the current Con- 
gregational movement. Their good name is at stake, 
their comfort, their prosperity, the good of the cause. 
Especially is this true in reference to the settlement of 
a minister. From the time the church in Salem, in 
1629, invited the church in Plymouth to be present by 
their representatives at the settlement of Mr. Skelton 



298 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELE. 

as their pastor and Mr. Higginson as their teacher, 
down to the present, the Congregational churches by a 
a quick instinct have seen and felt the fitness of calling 
a council to advise them on matters of such vital com- 
mon concern. 

But while a council to settle a minister springs up as 
a due of fellowship, it is also, in the case of all worthy 
candidates, a privilege. It enables the new pastor to 
take his place in the untried field at once, with the 
grand moral backing of experts. Well-furnished, sym- 
metrical men, true men, do not shrink from such an 
introduction. Moreover, it is this practice, where reg- 
ularly continued, that has done more than any other 
device of Congregationalism to make our ministers at 
once sound in the faith and evangelical in spirit, com- 
paring favorably in these respects with those of any 
other denomination. It is a suspicious circumstance 
when a pastor elect declines to have the case submitted 
to a council. 

In the case of difficulty, of such magnitude that the 
church cannot, or will not settle it, a council may be 
called — the two parties uniting in the call, a Mutual 
Council ; one only issuing the call, and the other refus- 
ing, an Ex parte Council. 

Congregationalism is jealous of the rights of minori- 
ties and individuals ; and the Ex parte Council is the 
means it has adopted for guarding their rights. Here 
the appeal is made from an alleged neglectful or tyran- 
nizing majority to the sense of justice and fairness of 
the disinterested churches. In this way no church, 
however strong or influential, can tyrannize over a 
single weak brother, without the liability of having its 
sins thrown in its face from the reflecting conscience 
and judgment of sister churches. The practice of hav- 



SERMONS. 299 

ing councils makes our churches contrast favorably 
with the Baptist churches, which rarely have them. 
Practically the council represses extreme individualism. 
Our Baptist friends have no fixed denominational ar- 
rangements for holding this in check — nothing but the 
diffused, unapplied Christian sentiment — nothing 
which they can bring to bear to heal quarrels and pre- 
vent the unnecessary multiplication of churches. The 
very certainty that such issues may be passed on by 
cool, disinterested advisers arrests local heat and pas- 
sion. 

Moreover, the principle of fellowship, hovering un- 
consciously in our atmosphere and exerting its ubiqui- 
tous influence, is ever on guard to prevent the undue 
rise of impracticable self-will, in a way that our neigh- 
bors of the same polity know nothing of. 

II. REPRESENTATIVE MEMBERS. 

These are local Associations or Conferences, General 
Associations or Conferences, and the National Council. 
The fundamental idea of these bodies is church fellow- 
ship, not the fellowship merely of the delegates ; the ob- 
ject is to promote the fellowship of the churches. They 
are the outcome of this fellowship. Their business is 
the expression of this fellowship. Their purpose is to 
promote it. Nothing further than this was possible ac- 
cording to the original historical conception. Of late, 
however, the churches of Michigan have made a radical 
departure. The General Association of that State is 
legally incorporated and has certain authoritative func- 
tions. It has a Board of Trustees, composed of one 
from each local association and six at large. These 
trustees act for the churches in aiding Sabbath Schools 
and churches, building houses of worship, relieving 



300 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. 

needy ministers, collecting results of councils, and 
other things favoring the common interests of the 
churches. The principle is the principle of the cen- 
tralized denominations, let in at the thin end, and 
abandons the heritage of the freedom and autonon^ 
of the individual church, for which our fathers strug- 
gled for two centuries and a half. 

It will be interesting to watch this experiment, but 
painful to imitate it ; for our polity goes on the theo^ 
that no authoritative power over the churches can be 
exercised by the representative bodies. Yet in their 
normal action these meetings are a mighty power in 
unifying, cementing and advancing the denomination, 
doing their work by reports, discussions, resolutions ; 
by incitement, by arousement, b} T kindling fires on 
central altars till the flames spread and wrap all the 
churches in a common glow. 

So great, however, is this moral power that individ- 
uals who have never breathed the air of Michigan — 
there have always been such men, and I presume 
always will be — want to go a step further, and have 
them do something positive and final for the denomi- 
nation. ' ' It would be so easy here to do something 
that needs to be done for the churches. We have 
these representatives ; they are constructively all here. 
Why not, here and now, do this bit of work for them 
— make a creed, settle their relation to the rnissionarj- 
boards, do a nice job of legislation, and save the end- 
less bother of waiting on the churches ? ' ' 

This is incipient Presbyterianisrn. Congregational- 
ists need to be jealous of their birthright, — the auton- 
omy of the individual church, the fellowship of the 
churches, the bond of their union. When a national 
council or state body presumes *to act decisively and 



SERMONS. 301 

finally for the churches, it is as much a stretch of 
Congregational principle as it is for the pastor to act 
in such a way for the single church. Nothing can be 
properly done 05^ a representative body, or a pastor, 
but what has been specifically delegated in form or by 
implication. The only seat of authority, even in the 
modified Congregational sense, is in the churches in 
their separate capacity. 

III. ASSISTING CHURCHES. 

This may be by gifts of members or money. This 
is a generous and considerate way of helping sister 
churches if they need it, and the Golden Rule suggests 
it. To act on a policy of withholding such aid, under 
the circumstances, is a breach of church fellowship. 
And observe, the aid in such cases is given in an out- 
handed way — outright — in no manner holding on to 
the gift and sharing in the continued management of 
it. This is our Congregational way — giving our best 
gifts, our valued members living near and naturally 
belonging to the other church, and our money, and 
forever vacating any claim to assist in administering 
the gift subsequently, committing that totally and 
absolutely to the aided church, within the limits of the 
object. 

Thus our churches exhibit a true fellowship, and yet 
respect the perfect self-hood and autonomy of one 
another, girding the aided church with strength and 
love at the same time. 

IV. AIDING CONGREGATIONAL INSTITUTIONS AND 
ENTERPRISES. 

We have many academies, colleges, seminaries, be- 
nevolent societies, founded and maintained solely for 



302 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELI,. 

the service of Christ. They are Congregational in 
general character and movement. They are manned 
by our men. They are conducted b}^ our methods. 
They breathe our spirit. They are the output of our 
life. They mainly depend on us for support and 
efficiency. 

Now, when our churches give to them men or inone3 r , 
they join hands with one another. When your church 
takes up a collection for our seminar, or sends one of 
its sons to it, it enters into the mystic fraternity back 
of it, putting life into it. It joins the circle that 
touches hands in sustaining it. It stands side by side 
with the other churches doing the same thing — one of 
a goodly fellowship. And so of all our institutions and 
enterprises. It makes no difference about its being 
true and genuine church fellowship, that here, too, as 
in aiding a church, the gift carries with it no claim of 
right to control ; that it is made out of hand ; and that 
that is the end of the responsibility of the giver, and 
the beginning of the responsibility of the receiver. 
This, here, also, is our way. The fellowship does not 
lessen between our churches that stand together in 
warm clasp of hand under our institutions and enter- 
prises, because they do not loosen their hands and 
reach up and take hold of the management. Manage- 
ment is not neceesary to fellowship, — to the common 
heart-beats of love and sympathy. When children 
and grandchildren come pouring into grandfather's on 
Thanksgiving day, it does not lessen the blessed com- 
munion that they do not share in the responsibility of 
planning for the occasion and getting things ready. 
Here, then, in the blessedness of giving to our objects, 
is a method of most real and effective church fellow- 
ship. To realize it and have the full benefit of it, the 



SERMONS. 303 

giving should be by churches — with church prayers, 
sympathies and presentations — with the church heart 
all aglow in the direction of the object. In this way 
our churches would be brought very close together in 
spiritual and substantial union. 

Such are the principles and some of the methods of 
church fellowship among us. If this spirit were per- 
fectly carried out, the relations of the Congregational 
churches to one another would be, indeed, heavenly. 

Why is it not ? The general answer, of course, must 
be the want of a heavenly spirit in the churches. The 
level of fellowship can rise no higher among them than 
the level of piety. But I wish to mention a few special 
reasons, that might be avoided, which keep this level 
lower than it ought to be. 

(a.) The first is the undue prominence attached to 
itself, in some cases, by the local church. It is a want 
of community feeling, and may originate with the 
pastor or the church. It is in the church self-absorp- 
tion, self-enlargement, indifference to outside interests. 
This spirit may be manifested in a large church with 
metropolitan ambitions, in a city ; or in a small church 
in the country struggling for life. Wherever it exists 
it is the same quality. It is indifference to others — all 
eyes looking to the home work, all hands drawing it to 
the central altar. While the qualit} T is the same in the 
large church as in the small one, the evil is slight and 
inconspicuous in the small one, for its opportunities 
of fraternity are few. But in the large one the oppor- 
tunities are many, and the influence of the absorbing 
passion for self-aggrandizement conspicuous and dam- 
aging. Here the one aim is to make itself colossal and 
strong, regarding this as the best way in which it can 
fulfill its mission. There is no attempt to carry up 



304 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. 

Christ's kingdom jointly, by harmonious co-operation 
with others, and consulting the general good. It 
would build a monumental church ; but it chooses for 
its kind of monument a needle, an Eiffel, resting on its 
own lot ; not a pyramid, a Cheops, resting on the broad 
acres of the denomination. This spirit counteracts the 
Congregational principle, and arrests its progress and 
lovely fruits, even though it may now and then make 
a generous largess in money, which does not fulfill the 
grace urged by the apostle : ' ' The fellowship of the 
ministering to the saints. " 

(b . ) Inertia is another obstacle . There are churches 
and pastors, not a few, that are not devoid of generous 
sentiments towards the interests of our order, but they 
are latent. When it comes to opportunities to put 
them in practice, they are sentiments still, not deeds. 
These churches are not represented at meetings of As- 
sociation and Conference. They do not appear at 
councils when invited. Everything must be favorable 
and easy to enable their good feeling to find expression. 
They attend to their own affairs and let the interests of 
the denomination take care of themselves. Fellowship 
is not outraged as in the previous case ; it is neglected 
for want of purpose, energy, self-sacrifice ; for want of 
seeing the real divineness of its claims. God does not 
call his churches to cloister themselves, but to join the 
host that is going up to take the land. 

(c.) Isolation, also, often interferes with expressions 
of this grace. It may not paral} T ze it, but it impedes 
its flow. A church out in the mountains, fifty miles 
from any sister church, too far away to have inter- 
course with others in a formal manner, may } T et, by 
looking abroad, by reading the papers and by corres- 
pondence, keep itself informed on all that is going on, 



SERMONS. 305 

and in lively sympathy with it. A man hidden in a 
dark cave where he himself is invisible, looking out, 
can see distinctly those in the light in front of the cave 
at a great distance. Persons on the frontier, looking 
to the centers of civilization, see much farther and 
more distinctly than those at the centers of civilization 
looking towards the frontier. And our lonely church 
in the mountains, fifty miles away, may keep its eye 
on our city churches, and know just how they are far- 
ing. On the other hand, a city church, by directing 
its special attention to the church in the mountains, 
keeping itself informed about it, touching it occasion- 
ally with the kindly touch of a helpful remembrance, 
may' keep up on the other side a true church fellow- 
ship, under difficulties. Still, isolation impedes its flow. 
Particularly with our sparse population and great areas 
here on the Pacific Coast, is this true. In some places 
the churches are not organized into active conferences 
or associations, or if organized the meetings are rarely 
attended by lay delegates ; and the expense of attending 
the General Association is so great that quite a num- 
ber of churches every year are unrepresented by either 
pastor or laymen. 

It is to be hoped that there is far more of the spirit 
of fellowship than our churches have an opportunity of 
expressing. If so, the question may well be raised, 
whether one good way of showing it would be for the 
stronger churches to prepare a fund to enable the 
representatives of all to be present at the fellowship 
meetings. This would express our Congregational 
principle, and would create it. It would add a crown- 
ing bliss and fervor to our meetings, which would 
greatly increase their value. It would bind our churches 
together by bonds, material and strong, yet altogether 



306 ISRAEL KDSON D^INKLL. 

free, voluntary and unecclesiastical. It would help 
them to rise in their simple Congregational way to 
greater unity, enthusiasm and power, to bring this land 
to Christ. 

Such is the unity force of our churches. In its ideal 
it differs widely from the aggregating force of the Bap- 
tists, which is a denominational instinct emphasizing a 
rite, and the feeling of religious kindred. Congrega- 
tionalism is not an aggregation — a mass thrown togeth- 
er, like a crowd on the 4th of July or some other public 
occasion, each in no close relation to the others except 
being near and sharing the common sentiment. It dif- 
fers widely also from that of the centralized, authorita- 
tive churches. It is no mechanical human combina- 
tion, like a cistern or a piece of cabinet work, held 
together by glue and screws or iron hoops. It is 
rather a costal. Scientists tell us that a crystal has 
a kind of life, the atoms of each molecule having their 
own distinct organization and function in that molecule, 
and all the molecules being united in the greater living 
whole, the crystal, with its symmetrical angles, facets, 
and unique form. In Congregationalism there is, in a 
similar manner, the same high gospel principle uniting 
the churches as in producing the individual church — 
in the crystal as in the molecule. To realize the unique- 
ness and value of this, remember that Christianity in 
the world aims ever to be at once an individual and a 
social power. It begins by planting itself in persons, 
and then it goes on to unite these in communities. 
Now, in Congregationalism Christianity does both of 
these things. Fellowship is the principle it works 
with. This is the crystallizing principle in the unit 
and in the body. Hence Congregationalism differs 
widely from Independenc3 r , which ignores the social 



SERMONS. 307 

uniting power of the gospel ; for it includes the com- 
plete integral idea of Christianity on earth, — individual- 
ism and sociality, — and secures them both by moral and 
spiritual means. And it is altogether unlike consolida- 
tion or solidarity, which slights individualism ; for it 
embraces both, but without license on the one hand or 
authority on the other. Its position is absolutely 
unique among the denominations, midway in the swing 
of the ecclesiastical pendulum, directly beneath the 
point of its suspension in the hand of God. 

Well, therefore, may we go forward with confident 
and joyous tread, feeling that our system in its idea 
largely reflects and anticipates the order of heaven, and 
struggle to make the reality more adequately realize 
the idea. 



THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 

[From a Lecture to his Class.] > 

A very remarkable quality in the sermon is its adap- 
tation to the timeless wants of the soul, in furnishing an 
ideal to struggle towards that can never be overtaken. 
He holds up for us an aim which comes out in many 
places in the sermon, and especially in this : — " Be ye 
perfect, as your Father in Heaven is perfect." This, 
although an under-current all through the discourse, 
is an ever transcendent aim. Go as far as thought can 
carry us, it is still beyond. 

This quality of the sermon shows at once its tran- 
scendent origin and its perfect adaptation to human 
needs. The soul demands just such an ideal. No great- 
er innocent source of discomfort could come to us than 
to wake up in some aeon of the future, and find out that 
we had gained all there was for us ; that we had reached 
the end ; that no more progress was possible ; that 
every grace and virtue and attainment was mastered. 
No ennui like that can be imagined— a soul doomed 
to eternity, to have nothing to look forward to but 
what it already has. Christ has provided better things 
for us, and it is hinted at in the fundamental sermon 
of his kingdom, where he has outlined them for us. 

Over against the timeless character of the contents 
of the sermon is the remarkable appropriation of the 
language, and culture, and habits of thought of the 
common people. He does not speak from the stand- 



3IO ISRAKL KDSON DWINKLL. 

point of the Pharisee, the Kssene, or any school of phil- 
osophy or religion, but of the common Jew, living in 
the country, and familiar with the facts of everyday life 
going on around him. He draws his illustrations from 
the fields and flowers and animals, and from incidents 
familiar to those hearing him. His words and idioms, 
in like manner, are those of the common people. So 
here is the most wide and far-reaching message — the 
ideal standard for all coming time, put in the hotnely 
costume of every-day life; a costume that is imperisha- 
ble, for the facts of nature and the incidents of daily 
life are the most unchangeable and cosmopolitan of 
any. Consequently, both the substance and the form 
of the sermon admirably adapt it for setting forth, not 
only to his immediate hearers but also to mankind at 
large down the ages, the fundamental character of the 
kingdom of God which he was proclaiming. 

The sermon also shows a certain unconscious lordli- 
ness that at once sets its Author, without his seeming 
to notice it, above all other teachers. There is no 
straining to maintain dignity, no appearance of the as- 
sumption of it. It rays out from Him as royally as the 
light and supremacy of the sun. " It has been said b}^ 
them of old time * * * but / say unto you. He 
speaks down to men unconsciously from an infinite 
height. The royalty of his words cannot be hidden. 
They betray the grandeur of his being. The sermon 
is human, but it is more. 



THE MINISTRY. 

Few boys will rise above the poise the mother gives 
them. If the mothers are content to have their sons 
worldly, selfish, self-indulgent, there are influences 
enough abroad to bring about this result. But if they 
desire them to do good in this world, and whatever 
position they occupy or success they gain have it all 
on the side of Christ, they must bathe their young 
hearts with the ceaseless ministries of prayer and 
Christian love and example. 

The ministry, for those who are moved and adapted 
to do high work, is the profession that lies nearest 
heaven, and calls for consecrated recruits with divinest 
voice. 

There is a shortening of time in preparation for the 
ministry that is wasteful in regard to preaching. Here, 
as in relation to giving, ' There is that scattereth, and 
yet increaseth ; and there is that withholdeth more 
than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty. 

Every pastor is, by office, providentially on an out- 
look committee, to find young men for a profession to 
which they do not turn till the thought is borne in up- 
on them, and to which the natural ambitions and at- 
tractions of life do not point. He can drop the enkind- 
ling suggestion in their hearts, and then, in due time, 
take the young men by the hand and lead them along. 



312 ISRAEL KDSON DWINELL. 

A preacher realty has no business to preach, unless 
his message comes to him fresh from God. We must 
remember that all truth, principle, moral and spiritual 
realit3 T is a living entity, and can no more be old than 
sunlight or God. The expressions of it, the historical 
forms it has taken on, may be old, but the thing itself 
is ever fresh. 

The modern preacher needs, as much as the primi- 
tive one, the sense that he is proclaiming the fresh 
thought and will of God. He must come down from 
the mount as Moses did, with his face shining from 
immediate communing with God. Tradition, the 
church, the schools, the Bible itself, can give only the 
old envelopes ; back of them and through them the 
preacher must penetrate to the living, spiritual con- 
tents, and when he has them he will have a message 
fresh from the eternal world, as apt and precious to 
men now as in the days of the Prophets or the Apos- 
tles, and in preaching which he may have as much 
heavenly enthusiasm as the} r had. 

God cherishes the individuality of his servants as one 
of his finest and most delicate works, and is careful to 
lay no burdens on them to crush this down to one mon- 
strous level. He is anxious that this should appear in 
their preaching as well as in the play of their features 
or the tones of their voice. He would have them true 
to themselves as well as to Him. 



THE SABBATH. 

As light streams out through the sides of a glass lan- 
tern in all directions on a dark night, so from a spirit- 
ually illuminated rest-day God sends out moral light 
in all directions through the community. 

When you see the flag of a well-kept Sabbath flying 
over a land, you know that it is a land which God is 
blessing in the whole strain of its civilization. It is a 
divinely brooded and guided land. 

The people, in consequence of God's blessing on 
their quickened moral life, are prosperous, strong and 
effective. They are eminent in their manhood, their 
achievements, their success, in the gains of this world 
and the world to come, in the catalogue of saints, 
heroes, benefactors. God touches and tones their 
energy with power and wisdom, and carries it forward 
to high results. 

Our civil system sprang up around the Sabbath as a 
sacred da}'. Historically this was its origin. The first 
settlers of Xew England brought it with them from the 
Puritans of the mother country. The whole civil life 
of the colonists revolved around the Sabbath as a sacred 
day. Some of their regulations were severe, some of 
their notions were extreme, some of their practices 
ridiculous ; but all this only shows the prominence 
which the sacredness of the dav held in their whole 



314 ISRAEL BDSON DWINELL. 

civil economy. So all the criticisms of Cavaliers, the 
ridicule of the Broad Churchmen, the denunciation of 
the Free Thinkers, which we have heard and read on 
this subject, are in evidence now of the thorough com- 
mitment of New England to this idea. Other colonies 
adopted the same spirit in greater or less degree, and 
made their civil life fashion itself around a sacred day. 
Out of such a condition of society, with one day in 
seven distinctively set apart for the higher uses of heart 
and mind, and the service of God, and rest from secular 
work — with the Sabbath as the beating heart of the 
whole civil system, sending its vital currents through 
all the days of the week, all the tissues of society — 
came our civil sj^stem. It was born of a Sabbatic 
mother, wrapped in Sabbatic swaddling clothes, and 
rocked in a Sabbatic cradle. 



MISCELLANEOUS. 

Christianity dying out in New England? Not a bit 
of it ! It is pluming its wings. It is preparing for 
larger flights toward the sun — toward the rising sun, 
and the setting sun — and to carry with it, in its offer- 
ing to Christ, the brawn and the brain, the culture and 
the weakness, the civilization and the degradation of 
the land of the Puritans. Have no fears of New Eng- 
land, as long as she remains what she is. Would that 
she were a thousand times larger and more powerful, 
and that she overlapped the Continent ! 

What a call is here for a high standard of Christian 
living, for unflinching devotion to principle, for self- 
sacrifice in doing good ! All along this coast, from 
San Diego to the northern part of Puget Sound, the 
country is full of young life and quickened activity. 
It is an age of blazing the trees and cutting the trails 
for coming generations ; and it is an age when Christ 
summons his people to lead the way. All over the 
land the stirring call comes : — Arise, shine ! for thy 
light has come ! 

The missionary work is based on the great unities 
of Christianity. They are such as these : That the 
race is one ; that depravity is one ; that redemption is 
one ; that regeneration is one ; that the Christian life 
is one. We do not reach the true spirit of our local 
work till we come down to it from the heights of these 



316 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. 

grand missionary unities. The kingdom of God, which 
knows no land, no race, no condition, as excluded from 
its provisions, must come into a man, to enable him to 
give a cup of cold water, or do any service even, unto 
the kingdom. The Light that lighteth every man 
that cometh into the world must be welcomed and 
reflected, to enable a man to walk a step in an old 
Christian community, according to the light. 

We should have faith that business methods may be 
converted to Christ, like everything else ; and that, 
when this change has taken place in the relation of 
employers and the employed, strikes will be impossi- 
ble, and good will and harmony will prevail. 

The influence of woman's work for woman, I have 
no doubt, is largely the cause of that gradual elevation 
of the plane of missionary activity and life which is 
now going on throughout all our churches. God bless 
woman's work for woman ! 

The present form of materialism is becoming old, 
and losing the glamour of its novelty. * * * The 
popular thought will once more rejoice in God, and 
men will have faith to see God back of the sequences 
of cause and effect, back of nature, back of history, — 
back of these and in them . 

In the spring-time there are concealed forces of na- 
ture working invisibly in plant, shrub, tree, the roots 
of grasses and buried seeds, plying their nimble and 
ceaseless energies to produce leaves and buds and 
flowers and fruit — all the greenness and bloom and joy 
of the vegetable world. In like manner the concealed 



MISCELLANEOUS . 3 1 7 

forces of religion are, under the varied forms, parts and 
energies of our social life, working noiselessly, and 
working far and near, to produce the beauty and fra- 
grance and ripeness of the social condition. 

Moreover, where religion does not succeed as a prin- 
ciple of life in producing beautiful and fragrant things, 
it acts as a vis medicatrix, cicatrizing the wounds of 
our civilization, overcoming the fevers, tugging at the 
poisons and slowly expelling them, uniting the broken 
bones, building sanitary walls about the chronic sores, 
or giving twinges of neuralgic smart, to call attention 
to the lurking badness. The distempers and vices it 
does not prevent or arrest it puts a fringe of healthful 
influence about, a barrier of antagonistic life — or fights 
fire with fire, preventing a general destruction. So 
the scourges of intemperance, licentiousness, crime, 
and other social distempers, and even war — and civil 
war — are abridged or quarantined or mollified, and kept 
within some bounds. 

But, apart from the natural influence of the very 
spirit and genius of Christian^, leading it to seize 
and mould and use the elements and materials of civil- 
ization, it has positive, mighty engines of civil power, 
out in the light of the sum in our land, working directly 
upon civilization, with noise and clatter and busy in- 
vestment of the seats of influence and the hidings of 
social life. These are its organs and instruments. 

The eider-duck plucks from her breast the fine, soft, 
incomparable down, to line the nest for her young ; but 
the hunters rob the nest to enrich themselves, when 
she plucks her breast again ; and, when they do it a 
third time, the male bird repeats the operation. So 
religion continues to 3-ield the finest and choicest civil 



318 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. • 

and social blessings to those who annoy and wrong 
her. Nay, more, she gives them many of the imple- 
ments and powers with which they assail her, helping 
them to their culture, standards of criticism, moral 
artillery, the whole enginery of truth — so far as they 
have truth — with which, not satisfied with chafing her 
defects, they fall upon her. She furnishes them in 
unconscious exuberance with the power and means of 
attack, when they try to worry the life out of her. 

According to ancient Greek story, the infant Her- 
cules was carried by Mercury to Olympus, and put to 
the breast of Juno without her knowing who the child 
was. He was so nourished by the divine food that he 
drew godlike strength from it, which he subsequently 
used to thwart the wishes of the goddess who had 
nursed him while she was asleep. And there is an- 
other who has said, " I have nourished and brought up 
children, and they have rebelled against me." This 
appropriation of divine gifts — the beauties and excel- 
lencies of ripened intellect and cultured humanity, 
drawn from the bosom of religion, and which she, 
sleeping and waking, freely offers to all, only to use 
quickened powers and God-like vigor thus derived in 
attacks on the generous, unthinking foster-mother — 
is one of the strange facts of our strange world, and 
puts those guilty of it in an unenviable attitude before 
the discernment and conscience of mankind. It is the 
act and purpose of a parricide without the effect ; for 
Christianity is immortal and unconquerable, and goes 
on scattering her blessings, in sublime pity and sor- 
row for the ingratitude and weakness, among all who 
will receive them. 



MISCELLANEOUS. 319 

The soul never feels old, but always young, as if 
pluming itself for an indefinite flight. It feels at three 
score and ten as if it had just opened its eyes in its 
Father's house, visited a few of its wondrous chambers, 
and seen some of their sumptuous furnishings ; but 
that the grand objects of its existence were fresh upon 
it, and that the morning dew was still lying upon life. 
Now, when you see the soul thus oblivious of its years, 
not knowing that it has any, do you not see that you 
are sighting an energy with the instincts of immor- 
tality ? 

It is a remarkable fact, that amid all the changes that 
come over us and go through us, there is a persistent 
consciousness of the same selfhood. There is a cen- 
tral fixed /, about which the outer selfs come and go. 
The body changes, the thought- world, the feelings, the 
purposes. We go off in dreams, in visions, in insanity ; 
but returning reason gives us back the same conscious 
self. Does not this persistent personality point to a 
selfhood that will survive all changes and catastro- 
phes ? 

Again, the soul has telltale thoughts. It thinks 
God, Truth, Goodness, Infinity, Eternity. From with- 
in itself it sends out thoughts, like the feelers of insects, 
which reach over into the eternal world, feel the reali- 
ties there, take their form and proportion, and assure 
it of their certainty and quality. And when you see 
this, do you not see the very energy of immortality it- 
self in its forecast outreachings and workings ? Now 
these signs and tell-tale revelations do not merely sug- 
gest a future existence, without assuring us of its per- 
manency, but they carry us grandly and triumphantly 



320 ISRAEL EDSON DWINELL. 

over into the conviction of immortality itself. The 
sonl is so constituted that if it catches sight of a 
future existence at all, as awaiting it, it stops not at 
any half-way point, but speaks at once to the belief of 
its endless existence. If man is so great, what shall 
we do for him ? Help him up to God, to truth, to 
goodness, to duty, and so fit him for his true home. 
If man is so great, what shall we do for ourselves ? 
Live for immortality, our own and that of others, and 
so secure the highest end of existence. 



